I think Dr. Harley's advice sounds great for people that already feel motivated to do everything they can to improve their marriage but the problem is that it seems like some of the worst offenders often don't care enough to do anything about it or are content to simply try to maintain the status quo. For example, it seems like there is more focus on how to improve your marriage than the question of why. Does anyone here know of a good way to successfully overcome extreme resistance to change?

My wife's idea of improving our relationship basically involves pointing out everything I have done wrong and all the changes I should make. Maybe she has a point to some extent because of the top 5 needs listed in "His Needs, Her Needs" I can't really complain about any of them other than the last one (admiration) but I definitely don't do much to satisfy her needs other than financial security (mostly by coincidence not because I wanted to do this specifically for her). I guess the real problem for me is that I just don't like my wife very much at this point so a few hours of undivided attention per week already feels like too much.

From my perspective, trying to make my wife happy sounds like another full-time job when I just want to relax and do the bare minimum I can get away with. I don't really believe in fairy tales about finding a perfect match but it would have been nice to have a wife that is a little more laid-back and easy to get along with. Basically, I wouldn't mind walking away from my marriage at this point but I just don't want to deal with the stress and inconvenience of a divorce right now. Certainly I don't want to be in the same situation 5 or 10 years from now but I always think I'll worry about this later so then another year goes by that I feel like I have wasted. So far the easiest and most effective way I have found to deal with my wife is to just agree with almost everything she says to avoid conflict at all costs.

grimreaper, if she is making complaints to you then she is trying to improve your marriage. A complaint is an opportunity to improve in a good marriage, and an irritation in a bad marriage. If you are not doing enough to fill her needs, then what are you doing to change that?


The problem is that all of your efforts are misguided. You are working hard instead of SMART. And that is what this program does, it guides your efforts in a strategic manner that produces results. Your efforts are not reaping results.

It is much easier to maintain a marriage when you are in love than it is to maintain one when you are not in love. Your marriage is very hard, no doubt. It is not hard when you are in love.

I don't agree that she is not motivated. It looks like the lack of motivation is on your part. This can be turned around with a little effort.

It is not the easiest and most certainly is not the most effective. It just builds resentment, AS YOU CAN SEE.

grim, your situation is a pretty typical situation that Dr. Harley addresses frequently. He usually deals with situations where one or both spouses are unmotivated, and he usually deals with situations where the husband needs to make changes in order to address his wife's complaints. Your wife's complaints are not unlimited (although it might seem otherwise!) and if you can systematically address them, her emotions will change, which will motivate her to change her behavior, which will change your emotions and your motivation -- and improve your life greatly. Right now you are mostly happy with the status quo, you just want her to stop complaining, and you would also like her to admire you. Well, if you address her complaints by changing, forming a better marital adjustment than you have now, not only will her complaints stop, but her comments will change into admiration!!

If you get a chance, get ahold of Dr. Harley's book His Needs Her Needs and read the chapter about establishing admiration. There is a plan in there you and your wife can follow that will probably resolve most of your difficulties. In following that plan you and your wife would agree to make a trade: she will provide admiration to you in exchange for certain things from you. Sound fair? Then you will have a status quo that you are happy about: one without complaints, and full of admiration.

You don't like her because she isn't meeting your needs as well as you would like...or she is meeting your needs, but not the right ones. Also since you aren't meeting her needs, her attitude toward you is probably a little cold.

Do you want to have a good marriage? Of course you do. You aren't very happy with a mediocre one.

Is it ideal that you have it with your curent wife? Yes!

So how can you do that? What can you control? You can control yourself. So that means you can start trying to meet her needs. You can't make her change at this point.

What are her needs? Perhaps you can guess. What does she complain about? Those are what you should start with. After a bit, see if she will fill out the emotional need questionnaire.

What about your needs? After her needs are getting met, then she will be more open to meeting yours. Perhaps you like to play golf. "Hey, wifey, how would you feel about going to the golf range with me? We could hit some balls. It will be fun and then we can go to YourFavoriteLunch place after."

I think we both don't have much motivation to change at this point. For her I think it is mostly because she thinks she doesn't really need to change anything and that whatever problems we have are mostly my fault. For me, doing what she wants feels like a no-win uphill battle because as soon as I do one thing she wants then she will just turn around and ask me to do 10 more things for her. So if she's never satisfied either way then I don't want to invest too much effort into a lost cause. I would actually like to go to marriage counseling simply for her to hear an outside perspective because if she hears it from me she typically won't listen but she's not very interested in that idea.

If I want to try to apply the concepts of radical honesty and joint agreement I wouldn't even know where to start because in my experience my wife just doesn't react very well to the truth as I see it. Even if she doesn't reject the idea immediately I don't know that it will really sink in easily so as soon as she doesn't get her way or hears something she doesn't like then she will freak out and it will be back to the way it is now. She is extremely sensitive and will take things that don't sound threatening or offensive at all to me and interpret them as a personal insult against her and get defensive about it. So I feel like I need to constantly pretend and tell her what she wants to hear just so she doesn't get too upset.

It is not simply lack of admiration and minor complaints that bother me as much as blatant disrespect and lack of consideration for my feelings. She constantly criticizes me and refuses to even listen to my opinions. Whenever I don't go along with what she says then she will throw an out-of-control tantrum, call me names, threaten to leave me, etc. These behaviors I typically see are described in Love Busters as selfish demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts. Some people wouldn't believe me if I told them that I think my wife is abusive because it's just not something they expect a man to ever say and they mostly associate this description with physical abuse not things like manipulation and emotional drama. However, that's how I really feel about it; I feel like I have basically been a victim of being repeatedly mistreated for years. I definitely want my wife to change but I don't know that giving her less to complain about will ever achieve that result by itself because I suspect that she will just find something else to nag me about or blame me for.

Grim, you are a conflict avoider, and as such, YOU have enabled your wife to disrespectfully demand things because...it works for her! You fold like a card table.

Stop it.

Next complaint she has, ASSUME it is valid. Tell her that you hear her saying that it annoys her when you, idk, leave your socks on the coffee table and then tell her how you will address it (and go all the way back to the origination of the annoying habit; with my socks example, it might be to take them off before entering the living room) and ask her if that would work for her.

It is incredibly frustrating to live with someone who avoids conflict. If you stop that, and start treating her with some respect (it is incredibly disrespectful to grudgingly agree to CARE for someone because it makes your life easier), she will very likely return the favor.

Get on the phone with Steve here at the coaching center.

It is your lack of care here that is the problem. Women who feel genuinely cared for do NOT act like screaming banshees, sir. She gets louder because YOU DON'T LISTEN. So listen.

Gr, you both have very poor habits that are destroying the love in your marriage. I would get marriage counseling with the Harley's and they will give you a plan to restore the romantic love in your marriage and learn how to resolve conflicts in an effective way. They are completely different from traditional marriage counseling in that they restore the romantic love to your marriage. People who are in love don't have problems with communication.

This article will explain how to fix your marriage http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8114_plan.html

Okay, so there's a lot of things that have to happen here:

* You have to address her complaints
* she has to learn to make her complaints without being demanding, disrespectful, or angry
* the two of you have to learn how to generate admiration in your marriage
* (possibly) she has to learn to make decisions that take your feelings and opinions into account along with her own

Lots of marriages have worked through exactly these issues, learned the new skills involved, and turned the marriage into something both husband and wife appreciate.

Here's an article Dr. Harley wrote that sounds like a similar situation to yours:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5067b_qa.html

Many of us on the boards here have been here for a long time. Many for a short time. But the reason we keep coming back is because the MB program/philosophy works, **edit**

You were attracted to your wife once, and she to you. Most likely, you went on dates. You did fun things together. (recreational companionship). You had long talks (Conversation). You told her how nice/smart/pretty she was. (Admiration).

So as you met each others Emotional needs, you fell in love. You were in what Dr. Harley calls the State of Intimacy.

You got married, had a job, had some kids. No longer did you have just you too, but other obligations. Other things seemed more important than "date night". You got a little annoyed when your wife had more time for other things and wasn't meeting your ENs. You fell into the state of Conflict.

Well, if she won't (Have SF/Keep the house clean/Talk to me) then I won't (come home early/take out the garbage/go to her parent's house). You didn't want to meet her needs or even let her meet yours. You are now in the state of Withdrawal.

Since your LoveBank is so low, you dont' feel in love at all! You are wondering how you could ever fall in love again! I don't want to meet her needs because there are so many!
What should I do?

So you have come here.


I mentioned that many of us have been here a long time...and over that time we have seen many of the same patterns. You appear to be in the case where you have just stopped meeting each others needs and are co-existing. We don't see any red flags for an affair. That is good.
You can regain the love and you can do it by meeting each others ENs.

**edit**

1) Stop any Love Busters but keep firm boundaries.
If she won't listen to your opinion, just say that You want to come to an agreement that you are both happy with, and you will come back later after she has a break because you are not going to be yelled at.
If she has a tantrum, then just excuse yourself to another part of the house. Or go to the grocery store.
If she denies these tantrums, then secretly record her and play it back later.

2) Start meeting her Emotional Needs.
If she complains that you don't help around the house, then have the both of you make up a chart of household chores that need to be done and divide it up.
If she complains that you never talk to her, then ask her about her day/work/family/thing you heard on the news over the dinner table.
If she complains that you never spend time with her, then ask her to go on a walk with you/play a board game with you.
Start doign some of the (reasonable) things she is complainging about. Then try to get her to do the Emotional Needs Questionnaire.

Although you are in Withdrawal and don't really want to do these things, you are the one who is here so you are the one that gets to start getting the ball rolling.

**edit**

wannabophim, please check your email that you have listed with Marriage Builders or contact me directly at fireproof01@gmail.com Thank you!

I don't doubt that these principles will typically work if people are open-minded and willing to give them a chance; I just think it would be frustrating to try to do everything you can to save your marriage if your spouse isn't willing to do much to help the situation. One thing I was wondering about is whether some people here had a spouse that was really skeptical or didn't even want to hear about some of this but you were able to get them to come around eventually somehow or if some of you were the one that didn't think you had a problem then what did it take to make you realize that you really needed to change?

Thanks everyone for all the suggestions and links to the related articles, this definitely helped give me a better idea of what some of my options are. I have been ignoring problems for so long that I think it made things much worse and once I started to pay more attention to what has happened it seemed overwhelming and almost impossible to resolve; but now I see there are some simple steps I can take and I don't need to do it all at once.

When motivation is the problem, it is a good idea to employ some of the counseling resources offered by the Harleys. Most of the couples who sign up for the Marriage Builders course, for example, have one reluctant spouse. Once that spouse understands the program and sees how they stand to greatly benefit, they get on board. Your spouse will reap great benefits from the program so once she understands that, it is not a problem to get her on board.

My H had no use for Marriage Builders until he understood that he stood to gain alot in the deal. People buy things when there is a percieved benefit. You have sell her on the benefits and it you can't do that, then let the Harleys do it. My H and I went through the MB course in 2007 and he is he is a great supporter now. We have a romantic, passionate marriage because of it. It was the best thing we ever did for our marriage.

It is not hard to get someone on board when that is the outcome.

I'm someone who had a reluctant spouse, and I would spazz out like your wife because it seemed so simple to me, but he would do anything to avoid conflict or interaction, including moving out in the middle of the night while the family slept. We have four children, and I basically sold him on buying all-in on MB (even after six months of coaching with Steve) by busting up his fantasy divorce scenario where he would just walk away and I would keep the four kids. I told him I would REQUEST that the court give HIM full custody.

For some reason, he decided that getting involved in the marriage would be easier on him than being a single parent of a bunch of kids. It worked for me, in ways that I never thought imaginable.

Do you have children?

And you are correct: it is incredibly frustrating to be the only one working on the marriage. But the effort is worth it. Either you will learn the vastness of your strength and reap the rewards, or you will learn how to spot a soulless vampire.

Almost everyone who comes here or who goes to Dr. Harley's seminar has one spouse of the couple, either husband or wife, who is reluctant, skeptical, doesn't really want to work on the marriage, etc.

That's exactly what the board and all of the other help Dr. Harley offers is for. Please get to reading: you will learn that your spouse is much more likely to come around when your account is full in her love bank. She can start to feel better in as early as just a few weeks if you do everything right, and in time she will be willing to come around for you.

Dr. Harley says men have much more success winning their wives over in this manner than women do. If the husband is on board with the program, he is much more likely to be able to bring his wife around if he will stick to the program. You have great reason to hope if you are male and you are able to keep your emotions in check and follow the plan.

I recommend you check out Dr. Harley's radio show and become a daily listener.

No, I don't have any children yet. Also, I'm not overly concerned about the idea of losing some money or possessions in a divorce. So for me some of the main factors that often make people more reluctant to bail out of their marriage don't really apply. I guess I have just gotten used to the way things are where I didn't really expect to be happy or get what I want and I didn't expect to be able to make my wife happy either. At this point it is more about convenience and feeling secure than having a good healthy relationship. I don't really want to be single; my escape fantasy would involve being free to possibly marry someone more like my ex-girlfriends that didn't try to control me and expect me to change quite so much the way my wife does. However, I never lived with them so maybe I didn't really have a chance to see their most annoying traits or personality quirks.

grimreaper, you are correct that any marriage you would be in you will be unhappy if you continue to approach marriage in the same way. The issue is not the person but that you lack the skills to negotiate in a way that sustains the romantic love in your marriage. It is obvious that you have fallen out of love. And you would fall out of love in the next marriage too if you do the same things. The solution is to fall BACK in love with your wife and create an integrated lifestyle that will sustain such a lifestyle.

ALL good relationships require change over time. ALL of them.

One important change is for us to learn to stop doing things that bother our spouse. It's not control for a wife or husband to expect their mate to refrain from doing things that aren't good for BOTH of them.

Women do not want a doormat that will just cave to her when she raises her voice. YOU need to stand up for yourself and let her know that you will not tolerate her talking down to you, snapping at you, demeaning you, yelling, etc.

It's really easy. All you ahve to say is, "I would appreciate it if you wouldn't....." If she keeps it up, "I'll be glad to have this discussion with you when you are not raising your voice to me. I love you." And walk away.

It's time for you two to sit back down and to the Love Busters questionaire and get to spending 20 hours of UA time together.

I don't have a problem with the idea of making changes or adjusting to changes as long as I can see why it is necessary or worthwhile. However, I think in some cases marriage partners will never agree with each other about some things. This doesn't necessarily need to ruin their marriage as long as they can live with some of the differences and make some compromises if necessary. Of course, my wife does not think this way at all; she is very stubborn and if I ever disagree with her then she typically doesn't want to hear about or try to understand why. So I get tired of fighting with her and just let her be right in her own mind but because decisions have basically been made for me by her without any consideration for how I feel about it then I usually end up resenting it.

For example, before I was married I liked to get drunk sometimes on weekends but I knew she didn't like this so I basically thought that I needed to stop doing this as a condition of being married to her. At the time, I thought I should stop drinking anyway and that I wouldn't miss it that much plus I didn't think it was worth breaking up with her over it. Since then, in the handful of times I have been drunk around her she has always made it a point to express her disapproval in a very mean-spirited, judgmental, and disrespectful way and one time she even dumped my whiskey down the sink and threatened to leave me.

So now we never have any alcohol in the house and the thought of telling her I want to have a few drinks terrifies me. Most of the time it doesn't bother me but during our last few vacations together it really started to get to me and instead of enjoying the time together I was mostly thinking about how I can't drink at all anymore because of her and all I have to look forward to if nothing changes is basically just a lifetime of being under my wife's thumb. Don't get me wrong, I understand that alcohol abuse is not healthy and I don't really want to go back to the same way I was before but I still think it should be my choice to decide how much I drink or not.

GR, the problem with your approach is that you want her to tolerate your thoughtless behavior when you know it upsets her. The real question is why you would engage in thoughtless behavior when you know it upsets her? Doing so shows you dont care about her. You are ruining your marriage with such an approach yet you aver that such things shouldn't ruin a marriage, yes, thoughtless, independent behavior ruins marriages.

A better way is to find solutions that make you both happy. Neither one of you should gain at the others expense. The policy of joint agreement could solve such problems, but I think we have already told you this several times. Are you reading up on how to negotiate such solutions?

And of course it is "your choice" to drink or not. But that misses the point. It is also your choice to have an unhappy marriage where you force your decisions on your wife whether she likes it or not. Such an approach means you erode the love in your marriage.

Also, I think if alcohol is more important to you than your wife's feelings that you probably have a drinking problem. That would explain why she once threatened to leave you and why you have such independent behavior.

You are an alcoholic, aren't you?

I agree, it sounds like OP may be an alcoholic.

She married you with the belief that you didn't have a drinking problem correct? Now it is to the point where the idea of drinking alcohol is something your marriage now conflicts over.

A lot of alcoholics write this off as saying "... well, I'm an adult and he/she is too controlling".

You said you couldn't enjoy your vacation because you wanted to drink and basically thought you would live life under her thumb? Those aren't the words of someone 'stifled' under an oppressive marriage, those are the words of an alcoholic. Please don't try and convince yourself otherwise, like most alcoholics try to rationalize.

I don't believe I'm an alcoholic because it seems like most alcoholics drink all the time. I was more of an occasional binge drinker; it was definitely unhealthy simply because of how much I would drink at one time but it didn't really interfere with my work or everyday life the way it sounds like it typically does for alcoholics.

Alcoholism is not defined by how much or how often, but by what happens when they drink. Most alcoholics don't drink all the time and most hold down jobs, etc and maintain their lives. When the people in your life think you have a problem, you usually do.

What stands out to me is how important alcohol is to you. It is more important than your wife's feelings and so important that you would have fights with her.

Any sane person would just stop drinking if it made their spouse so unhappy. You sound like an alcoholic to me.

Melody, an alcoholic with 27 years sobriety.

If you have to drink to enjoy your vacation, you probably have a problem. Normal people don't have to drink to enjoy their vacations.

And how would you enjoy your vacation if you are fighting with your wife? That makes no sense.

The perception of the alcoholic being some wino that can't keep down a job/family because of their constant drink certainly exists but the truth is that the average working guy, stay at home mother, grandmother, teenager can be an alcoholic.

Your marriage is at risk of divorce over the issue of alcohol. You do realize it is an alcoholic behaviour to choose alcohol when it greatly upsets your spouse? It's not "normal" for alcohol to cause such issues - it's certainly normal for it to happen in a marriage with an alcoholic.

It DOES interfere with your daily life at this point, does it not?

I strongly suggest heading to AA at this point because when alcohol causes problems in your life, it IS alcoholism. Binge drinking is just as much of an alcoholic as a daily drinker.

There's no question this is not normal; I definitely feel like the whole situation is sick and wrong but not necessarily for the reasons you think. Basically if I am an alcoholic then everyone that ever drinks sometimes and doesn't want to stop is an alcoholic because I know for a fact that I can control myself as well as anyone when I really want to. The truth is that if I could get away with drinking one beer in front of my wife now and then I would still want to do it even though I wouldn't get any kind of buzz out of it simply as an act of defiance against what I consider to be unreasonable expectations (selfish demands).

That's why I think the real issue here is mostly about control and lack of respect (disrespectful judgments) compounded by religious differences. We are both Mormon but we don't go to church anymore. However, she still believes in the Mormon Church but I don't believe in it at all anymore. Most of the time this is not really an issue but in this case I think it has definitely contributed to my feelings of resentment about being told what to do and her self-righteous attitude about this because if she tells people I was drinking then most of them would take her side and say I was out of line including my own family.

Basically, I think she should understand and respect the fact that I have my own beliefs and values independent of the Mormon Church and her own beliefs and values. She basically thinks that drinking is stupid and there is no good reason why I should ever want to drink but I think that if I like it and it makes me feel better sometimes and isn't causing any obvious problems then that is already reason enough to justify it. At this point it is hard to imagine even having a meaningful conversation about it when we are so far apart in our views and unlikely to ever agree with each other in this case.

When you were courting her and asking her to marry you...I presume you were willing to not drink and it really wasn't a problem to you. You were in love with her and willing to do what it took to make sure she loved you.

The solution isn't about her "understanding" or anything. The solution is falling in love again. In doing so...she may surprise you too and be willing to poja you having ONE DRINK or something now and again. But I wouldn't try poja'ing that for a long time.

You only get one wife...the one you CHOOSE doesn't like you drinking alcohol.

Mr. W

This Dr Harley quote comes to mind when I read your post:

"Isn't it interesting how someone can miss the point that mutual care in marriage is the only kind of care that makes sense? When your husband tells you that he wants you to care for him by suffering so he can have what he wants, he doesn't understand that this expectation means that he doesn't care about you. And that's the point." Dr Bill Harley


But you don't want to stop, that is the point. You contradict yourself by saying it is not important to you, apparently it is important enough to upset your wife. It is more important than your wife's feelings. It is so important that you would fight over a stinking BEVERAGE and make your wife miserable. Sorry, but someone who wants to drink THAT BAD has a problem.


Lack of respect would extend to you doing things that you KNOW are very upsetting to her yet you continue to do them. Your path is causing incompatibility and resentment in your marriage.


Ok, but don't you see that this is what you are doing? You want to be able to tell her what to do by forcing your drinking on her.


In other words, she should understand and accept that you want to commit thoughtless behavior with no consequences. Unfortunately, that tactic has been a disaster for you and you don't seem to get that.

A happy marriage is contingent upon INTERDEPENDENT behavior, not the independent behavior you propose. You already know that doesn't work yet here you are trying to sell it to us. You insist that you have the option of changing her but she doesn't get the option of changing you.

Did you know that this program typically doesn't work for alcoholics? The reason is because they simply can't give up their independent behavior. I see you struggling terribly with this.

Here's a fantastic radio clip that the Harleys talk about how alcohol affects a marriage.

Radio Clip on Alcohol

Good catch, Brainhurts!!

Thanks.

Dr. Harley says exactly what you've been trying to share with grimreaper.

"Am I problem to my spouse while I'm drinking?" "If you are, then stop drinking"

Only an alcoholic would risk breaking up his marriage over a beverage. So it is not believable when you say alcohol is meaningless to you and that you only want the occasional ONE beer. Do you ever hear of people risking their spouse's unhappiness and enduring fights and the end of their marriage over ORANGE JUICE? It is so meaningful to you that you have repeatedly risked your relationship with your wife. That is not how normal drinkers act.

I recognize this is as alcoholic thinking and I am sure the normal drinkers are scratching their heads wondering why you would even consider sacrificing your marriage over a stupid beer. That is NUTS.

I skimmed back over your thread and you have been given all the information you need to transform your marriage. Now it is up to you to take it. I can't think of anything more to add. I suspect, however, that your goal was to come here and get validation for your drinking and other independent behaviors.. Continued fishing for answers you like won't change the answers we give.

Grim, you are getting some tough love on this forum but stick with it, the end result will be well worth it. If your wife comes here she will likely get some tough love, too. Hearing the truth is the first step back to a great marriage.

The thing that makes this sound like alcoholism is that you are choosing a drink, a beverage that you consume, over your wife's happiness, the human that you committed to forever. Humans are more important that an beverage and a lifetime commitment is more important than a 30 minute buzz, wouldn't you agree?

Your wife reacts strongly to one drink becuase it is independent behavior.

Some people think that there is a degree of independent behavior that should be acceptable. The problem with that logic is that 1) You are saying it is okay to upset your spouse, and 2) it is impossible to figure out where to draw the line. If you wife was sleeping with every man on your block, would that be okay? What if she was just kissing them? What about just flirting?

So, you might admit that your wife has a right to speak up if you have 20 drinks, what about 15, what about 10 ... and why not 1? It's an arbitrary line you are trying to draw. And, how is she supposed to believe that you will allow her to have input about not having 15 drinks if she can't even have input about 1?

The more that you make decisions with your wife's feelings in mind, the less that she will have to exhibit controlling behaviors. She doesn't have to act controlling if you decide what is the best course of action together.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3350_guide.html

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5048a_qa.html

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5048b_qa.html

If my wife gave me an ultimatum about something like orange juice then that would definitely bother me and make me want to resist going along with this demand just as much if not more than her reaction to alcohol simply because it would demonstrate that she is the kind of person that typically gets so upset about insignificant things like this when no harm is done and it doesn't really make that much of a difference either way. If it was only one thing then it would be easy enough to just get in the habit of doing things the way she wants but with her it is always one thing after another. First I need to fold the laundry a certain way, then she doesn't like the way I dress, then I need to wash the dishes or clean the bathroom or mow the lawn or work on endless home improvement projects right now because it can't wait and then she says I didn't do it right.

Little things add up over a lifetime and that's why basically saying, "yes dear" to every single thing that by itself was clearly not as important as my marriage has not worked very well for me so far because after a while I started to feel like my marriage was mostly a source of pain and frustration and I couldn't hardly stand to be around my wife for very long anymore. So of course things that ideally should not be more important than your spouse's feelings can easily seem to be worth fighting over once it gets to this point. That's why I think the question of whether or not I had a serious drinking problem or not is beside the point and mostly distracts from the real issues in my case. The truth is that if I had married someone that didn't think drinking was such a big deal then there wouldn't have been any problem whatsoever but at the time I thought it was important to marry a Mormon true believer from a good Mormon family.

So far the only possible solution I see within the context of Dr. Harley's advice would be to try to reverse the following trends if possible: 1. Dishonesty; I didn't like to share my feelings because I was mostly concerned with how my wife would react. 2. Lack of negotiation and joint agreements. Our disagreements would quickly escalate into fights or I would just agree with my wife and resent it later. 3. Love Busters; my wife's selfish demands, disrespectful judgments, and angry outbursts outweighed any positive feelings I had about her to the point that I went into a state of withdrawal and basically gave up on her and thought it wasn't worth trying anymore.

And to think, all this is so you can drink. Its that important to you. It is not a selfish demand to insist you stop drinking. I think your wife probably understands you have a serious drinking problem that you value more than her or your marriage. You are simply in denial.

Stop "yes dearing" to everything. It's not working. It's leaving you resentful.

Stuff like folding the laundry wrong is pretty fixable, ask her how she wants it folded. Or do the laundry with her.

Whether you think it's dumb that she thinks you should't drink is not the point. If you want a happy marriage, you cannot continue to do things that irritate her. Of course this is more than likely because she is a Mormon and that is against her beliefs. But you married a Mormon knowing that those were her beliefs.

One huge issue is neitehr one of you are using POJA or trying to get rid of the Love Busters.

You married a mormon, you stopped drinking as what you felt was a condition of marriage (obviously she agreed), you admit to a history of binge drinking where things got out of control, drinking upsets her to the point of dumping alcohol down the sink, and you think SHE has the problem?

The only person here you are fooling is yourself.

You are at risk of turning to an affair - you are pretty much saying you want to go back to your single life and do whatever the heck you want, be damned if it hurts your wife, because you resent not being able to do whatever you want no matter who it hurts.

Your wife is mormon, she married what she believed to be a now non-drinker, she's not going to suddenly accept drinking no matter how insignificant you think one drink is. She is not a fool, you clearly are turning to a life ridden with IB's and driving your marriage to disaster.

Is this about wanting to be a young single carefree guy again?

A demand is when you demand that your spouse DO something, not when you demand that your spouse NOT DO something.


When you call your wife's concerns insignificant and say that no harm is done, you are making a disrespectful judgment of her.

This plan does not work if you are not willing to eliminate disrespectful judgments. There are certainly things that she needs to change if your marriage is going to work, but she will not be motivated to do so until you change this fault on your side.

If she had been fine with drinking when you got married, I would be on your side and encouraging you to find out why she had chnaged her mind about it and help you negotiate a solution that makes you both happy.

But we both know that's not what happened. You agreed to be a non-drinker. Then you drank anyway. And now call her controlling for holding you to an agreement you made willingly! How frustrating that must be for her.

Sometimes we have to grow up and honor the commitments we've made. If you worked with the tools here to make your marriage romantic, you would not be resentful over your past choices, becuase your current life would be so rewarding.

My wife was not as strict about this before we were married and earlier in our marriage. She would drink sometimes too but I think she just didn't want it to become an overriding habit and I think she was scared and disgusted to see how much I drank a few times. So then she would freak out and call me names which made me depressed and then I would drink even more. I honestly don't want to make my wife suffer because of something I am doing but I would like to at least be able to talk about it at some point without fighting and if she is still uncomfortable with the idea then I will drop it.

I don't really want to be single again, I mostly just resent being told what to do as if the way I feel about it does not matter. My wife also threatened to leave me if I didn't go back to church and act like a good Mormon and when I told her I didn't believe in the LDS Church anymore. So she probably already thinks this is not exactly what she was signing up for when she married me but I didn't feel like I had any choice but to tell the truth and I don't know what else I can do about it now. At first, I thought about not saying anything about it and just going through the motions to try to make her happy but the LDS Church requires such a high level of commitment that it can be a real pain to deal with if you don't think all this is worthwhile. She was upset about this at first but after a while she got over it so I think she just needed some time to get used to the idea.

Grim, I would start with the 20 hours of UA time, and make that time playful and enjoyable. Keep your LBs in check, and respond to hers with a simple "ouch" or something similar. Repair the love, then revisit these topics of religion and drinking. It is so much easier to be thoughtful toward your spouse when you are in love with them, and you will get that through enjoyable UA time.

You already know she is very uncomfortable with it, so it needs to be dropped. It causes fights so why would you want to fight with her? It is just a beverage and certainly not worth it.


TElling you that your behavior bothers her is not "telling you what to do," she is informing you that your drinking depletes her love for you. If she didn't tell you, then she would fall out of love and you wouldn't know it. You might not like to get overdraft notices from the bank, but what happens when you don't get them? Your bank account goes into the red and you are screwed. It is reasonable of her to ask you to stop something that clearly bothers her so much. Continually badgering her about it tells her that her feelings don't matter.


You should stop agreeing to things that make you unhappy. Her trying to FORCE you into church is as bad as your trying to FORCE her to accept your drinking. Your church is an area that needs to be re-negotiated. This program can teach you how to negotiate but I wouldn't START on this issue. Put it on the back burner until you become skilled at negotiation. Thats IF you become skilled. I have serious doubts that you can or will actually work this program because of your drinking problem. We will see..

My drinking was not even close to our only major source of disagreement or even our most serious one. I basically conceded defeat in this case and was not even thinking about this much for years but that was definitely not the end of the pattern of control because the line in the sand just kept on moving and I was almost always the one losing ground. It seemed to me that after the initial game of bait and switch my wife was clearly becoming increasingly self-righteous and stubborn about always expecting to get her way.

Sometimes I worry that my wife is basically turning into her mother; I noticed my mother-in-law would drag my father-in-law around shopping all day long and could see that we were headed more or less the same way and I didn't like it at all. Once I started to see how much my wife had been controlling me that's when I no longer saw drinking as simply an unnecessary habit I should just be content to live without but instead it became a constant reminder of the fact that I basically did not feel like I could be myself around my wife because I felt like I always needed to put on an act mostly based on what she wanted and expected.

By far my wife's most frequent complaint about me is the way I typically avoid her, ignore her, or tune her out. After she would freak out about it I would try to pay more attention to her but after a while I would always go back to doing the same thing again. The number one complaint I have about my wife is all the criticism, demands, disrespect, and disapproval I constantly get from her. Focusing on whether or not I had a drinking problem will not help with any of this. I understand that real alcoholics can be impossible to work with until they overcome this problem but that is not me at all. I know that there are many other men besides me that are basically being pushed to change so much by their wives that they start to wonder whether it is worth it anymore so that's why I don't know if it's a good idea to encourage this overbearing pressure because some of them will just give up without even trying to work things out.

You tune out, she freaks out about it, you pay attention to her for a while but then gradually withdraw again. Can you see how unloved she must feel when that happens?


Can you see the deadly dance here? Neither is interested in meeting the others emotional needs because the romantic love has gone. So you withdraw from her and she nags you. Eventually she will withdraw too and you will be lonely strangers leading a joyless life. Fun times eh?



Ah but it will, see below.


The best, the very best way to test your relationship is to apply the Policy of Joint Agreement(POJA) to anything that matters to either of you for any reason with no exceptions. Nothing makes a spouse more loved or more secure than the feeling that he or she is protected by this.

If POJAing an issue is making you feel controlled rather than safe and secure, then you have an attachment to something more important to you than your spouse.

Yet it is a major source of contention with you according to your posts. You apparently don't want to give it up as indicated here even though you know it makes her very, very unhappy and leads to fights. Normal people don't fight this hard for a mere beverage. Sorry, but that kind of crazy thinking is typical alcoholic thinking. It is not "control" to ask you stop doing something that bothers her.

While she does not present her complaints in a way that is productive, at least she does complain. Complaining is a good thing in marriage because it gives you an opportunity to change your behavior. It is an irritation in a bad marriage and an opportunity for improvement in a bad marriage.

Are you here to get help for your marriage or are you here to whine and argue with people who have what you say you want: a great marriage?

I am not going to waste time arguing with a man who doesn't know how to save his marriage. But if you want help to turn this around I will help you. Otherwise you are wasting valuable time here. Whining is a distraction from looking for solutions.

Complaining in Marriage

Dear Dr. Harley,

My wife says that she wishes she could talk to me about the things
she is dissatisfied with in our marriage, so they could be addressed.
But when she does talk to me about these things, I get frustrated
because it seems like she is never happy with me. The progress I
make doesn't seem to matter.

I often see her explaining what she is upset about as complaining and
only focusing on the negative. I don't often feel like she has
recognized the good things about us. I want her to be more positive.
I think she complains too much and does not see the good in some
situations. I want her perspective to change, but she doesn't think
she has to do something different to make this happen.

Thanks for your help.

R.D.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Dear R.D.

On average, women complain far more often than men, in both good and
bad marriages. But there is a difference in how the complaints are
received in those marriages. In good marriages, a complaint is
regarded as a problem to be solved with wisdom and compassion. In
bad marriages, a complaint is viewed as an unnecessary irritant --
something that should be either ignored or reacted to with anger and
disrespect.

Remember what a complaint is -- it's a reminder that you are losing
love units in your account in your wife's Love Bank. She is simply
giving you accurate information about the present state of your
relationship. While it may be discouraging to hear that you are
losing ground, to be kept in the dark about such losses would be
worse in the long run.

More than anything else, your wife wants to be in love with you, and
you want her to be in love with you. So to achieve that crucial
objective you must know when her love for you is being threatened by
behavior that makes her unhappy. If your marriage has any hope of
recovery, she must tell you how she feels about your behavior, and
you must make corrections to eliminate her negative reactions.

Your wife's high incidence of negative reactions simply reflects the
number of issues that have yet to be resolved in your marriage. If
you want her to be more positive, you must address those issues, and
eliminate them one at a time. You've had success in the past, and
she has been very encouraged when that happens. But when you seem
to be overwhelmed by it all, and tell her that she must learn to be
more positive, she feels hopeless because there remain many issues
that must be resolved if she is to be happy and in love with you.

The harder you try to become sensitive to your wife reactions, the
more successful you will become in doing what it takes to make her
happy. The more you try to avoid anger, replacing it with empathy
(an effort to try to understand how your wife feels without being
defensive), the more your wife will feel your care for her, and
that in itself will make massive Love Bank deposits.

Remember, all of your efforts on your wife's behalf make a
difference in the way you think and behave. You are rerouting
neural pathways in your brain that will make it easier for you to
care for her in the future. While it may seem like a lot of
effort now, in the future, it will be almost effortless to address
your wife's complaints, and solve her problems with compassion.

Best wishes,

Willard F. Harley, Jr.

Asking your spouse not to do something that bothers you is not control. Did you read my earlier post?


This isn't really true. Complaints are not limitless.

Grim, you are as much the problem as your wife. When you understand that, things will improve.

You say you don't want to give her affection because she makes demands, but she makes demands because you are withholding affection, and so the cycle goes on. You are locked into a negative cycle and the only way out is for one of you to do something different. Why not you?

You say that you are mad because she doesn't care about what you want, but you don't care about what she wants. Each of you doing whatever you want is incompatible and will lead to unhappiness and then divorce. That means you need to figure out how to make decisions that make you both happy. It may sound impossible now, but it isn't impossible.

Keep reading.

Agree with Penni. You are locked in a negative cycle of perpetual bitching. That won't fix your marriage. All that bitching keeps you distracted from implementing a plan to recover your marriage.

You need to take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth. Accept that you don't know how to save a marriage and stop arguing with people who have good marriages.

We are here to help if you will listen.

The reason it sounded like a controlling demand to me was because she didn't just say it bothered her and then wait for me to respond; she was basically saying, "Either do what I say or else I will leave you." There was no opportunity for any real joint agreement I could feel good about because she did not even listen to or try to understand my point of view at all and was not willing to take no for an answer. Maybe drinking was a bad example to bring up because it is a touchy subject for some people and some real alcoholics probably could use a strong intervention so I guess it makes me look like the bad guy and some people will mostly sympathize with my wife in this case.

However, my wife has given me similar ultimatums at least 8 other times I can remember and I already called her bluff for about half of them when I felt like my back was completely against the wall. Also there were many times she didn't make any threats but when I disagreed with her she threw a fit and then I was in the doghouse for a while. For most of these disagreements once she calmed down and realized that she was not going to get what she wanted then they weren't really an issue anymore after that. That's why I don't know about the idea that just because my wife acts like she is really serious about something then I automatically need to drop what I'm doing and permanently change my habits more in line with what she wants.

Sure there probably is some point where every single complaint someone can come up with has been heard. However, it seems like some women are relatively high maintenance and have a much longer list of things they want and expect than others. Where is it supposed to end? For example, should men basically be trained to think and act the way women typically do? Also, there are personality differences because my wife is a perfectionist and is very fussy about minor details but I am naturally lazy and I just don't care about many things she thinks are so important. At least at work I can prioritize but when I get home it seems like everything is suddenly important all the time. My point is that I think trying to do everything my wife asks for will only make things worse in my case because it will mostly be at my expense and I will eventually lose motivation to keep up the charade. I will do what I can to try to apply some of these ideas but what I think would probably help the most for me at first is simply being more honest and working on negotiation and trying to reach joint agreements.

The solution is for both of you to learn how to negotiate mutually beneficial solutions. Are you ready to get to work? We have already heard about how bad she is. Making more posts about that is a distraction from looking for solutions. Are you able to put aside your complaints long enough to learn how to resolve your problems?

So, because she gives up and withdraws, you think that means she didn't want it in the first place? And even if she did, she doesn't anymore? A woman can only take so much rejection.

Honesty and negotiation will get you much MUCH further than deception and resentful appeasement. She asks for so much because you give so little. I know you will see a decrease in her complaints if you address them. Even if by addressing them you only say, "I can't do that, hon, but I am willing to do this. Would you be willing to see if that works for you?" She is likely so accustomed to not being really heard or considered that this alone will cause her to swoon.

My husband is a perfectionist and I'm not, and we worked it out. Perhaps like your wife, my H expected me to SEE the things he saw in the tiny details (mainly having to do with DS), and it took years to find the compatibility balance in there. He would not have relaxed on this issue, I don't think, if I had approached it solely as his problem and that I didn't care.

You write in a very chauvinistic manner, btw. You might want to look into that.

hey! I have a novel idea!! Instead of working the program, lets talk the problem to DEATH!!

Hey, now! Talking it to death helped me work it. Some of us folks are slow.

Believe me, I am not talking about YOU. You might have talked alot, but you were working out SOLUTIONS while learning the program.

Grim, you are really painting yourself as the victim here. It took me a long time to realize this and I learned it through Marriage Builders and you can too - for every problem that you list, you are 50% responsible. You are responsible because you haven't figured out how to talk to your wife about it, how to come up with a solution, or how to draw appropriate boundaries. You haven't helped her be in love with you enough to want to make things better. The tools are here, all of them, but you need to learn them and put them into practice.

You don't know how long your wife's complaint list is because you haven't worked on it. The complaint list will become shorter as she becomes more in love with you. But, she can't fall more in love with you if you make no effort to resolve complaints.

Listen to the radio show and radio archives, I found them very valuable for learning. Consider sending a question in for the radio show, too, it can be really helpful to hear Dr Harley respond to your specific concern.

I wasn't trying to say that I don't want to do anything to improve the situation because it is mostly my wife's fault. Right now I'm still trying to understand what the worst problems are and what possible solutions there are. Personally I think that some of our unresolved disagreements have not had any lasting negative impact on the way my wife feels about me so I want to focus on the issues that will really make a positive difference. What my wife says she wants and what she really wants are not necessarily the same things sometimes. For example, I think she basically wants to feel supported and cared for but she doesn't really need me to stop watching sports in order for this to happen. However, because she sees me watching football or basketball for six hours straight that's what she will react to and say she hates it when I do this. In this case, simply cutting back on the amount of time I spend watching TV will not solve the problem by itself. I think one thing that needs to happen, if possible, is for the quality of our time together to improve somehow or else it will not last and we will eventually end up doing our own thing most of the time.

So have you both filled out the EN questionnaires?

So you know exactly what her top needs are?

Also I would do the lovebuster questionnaires.

Then you can proceed with a plan.

I see you doing a lot of ONE-SIDED strategizing here. That won't get you too far.

If you want to change your marriage, I would put aside all your thinking and start working the program.

Start with this article: How to Create Your Own Plan to Resolve Conflicts and Restore Love to Your Marriage

and then order these books and follow the lessons within them:

Lovebusters
His Needs, Her Needs
Five Steps to Romantic Love workbook

They sell them cheap on this website. If you will put aside your own thinking and start using the program, you will see a huge difference in your marriage. Start with the book, Lovebusters and at the same time pull out the undivided attention worksheet in the back of your workbook and make copies. Sit down with your wife once a week and schedule out 20+ hours of UA time. This will make the fastest, most dramatic changes in your marriage.

The Policy of Undivided Attention

I would also download and take the Marital Problem analysis questionaire so you can ID the top problems in your marriage: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4500_resource.html

My wife basically has no interest in filling out any forms, reading these books, or creating a rigid schedule ahead of time so it will have to be my own one-sided strategy unless I can get her to see the value of this program somehow. I have already read "His Needs, Her Needs" and "Love Busters" and I feel like I already have a fairly good idea of what my wife has found lacking on my part: 1. Affection, 2. Conversation, 3. Honesty, 4. Domestic Support. She also complains about what she considers annoying habits. We already usually spend Friday nights together; I could definitely try to spend more time with her during the rest of the week and be careful about the way I react to her nagging and criticism.

What's your plan to meet her needs?

To stop your annoying habits? You need to start filling her lovebank.
How will you do this?
Have you read this?
Rules that Guide Good Habit Formation in Marriage

My plan is to increase our UA time together to 15-20 hours per week and work on negotiation, being more honest, and trying to reach joint agreements in cases where I'm not happy about something. I think that would already be more than enough change on my part because as far as I can tell my wife's love bank is already much higher than mine and I am the one in a state of withdrawal where I don't even like to be around my wife very much anymore and I don't really want to listen to what she has to say most of the time. I think overcoming love busters is the biggest challenge right now because like Dr. Harley says these behaviors often make sense to people and they think they have a right to act this way and don't necessarily realize how much damage these things can do to their relationship.

Do you want to be right or do you want to stay married?

Why can't I do both? I don't expect my wife to agree with me in every case but if being married means that I'm never allowed to have my own opinions that are different from her opinions then I definitely don't want to stay married in that case.

What exactly are you saying here? Of course you should be able to hold your own opinions, but you cannot hurt your spouse with them, nor should she do so with you. My H and I hold very different opions on how clean the house should be and who should be responsible to keep it to the other's standards, and we negotiaited a way for both of us to be happy...it takes honoring your spouse's opinion, and doing what you can to get them what they want without sacrificing yourself.

It ain't rocket surgery, lol.

Your wife does not have the abilility to stop you from having opinions. You have the abilility to choose to listen to someone else's opinion and validate it, instead of discarding it because it is not your own. Think about that.

grim, have you read what Dr. Harley says about Respectful Persuasion? And have you read Dr. Harley's Four Guidelines to Successful Negotiation?

Of course you can hold your opinions; you have to learn to do that without being disrespectful to your wife's differing opinions. And vice versa. The methods to do this are here on this site.

Hold your tongue until you learn to express yourself without disrespect. This program does not work if you do not eliminate disrespect on your part.

What I meant by that is simply that my wife has displayed a general "my way or the highway" attitude for so long and about some things that are so petty or pointless to worry so much about that the threat of losing my marriage doesn't necessarily sound bad to me anymore because I am getting tired of all the irritation. Actually, I think completely suppressing your own opinions for fear of what your spouse will think directly violates the principles of radical honesty and joint agreement and will mostly lead to love bank withdrawals. I have read the negotiation guidelines; I already try to avoid showing any disrespect toward my wife and I try to listen to her and be as nice as possible even though I don't feel like it sometimes. If anything, I have probably tried to be too nice which mostly resulted in me feeling built up resentment while my wife didn't have any way of knowing about it.

GR, yes, there are people here whose spouses were not on board at first. Yes, there are cases where people were able to take skeptical spouses and turn them around to seeing the value of the MB system.

One way to do that is to refrain from any love busters. That shows your spouse that MB benefits them by helping them get a less irritating spouse. Another way is to never behave in a way that benefits yourself at your spouse's expense. That shows them another benefit of MB to them, in having a less selfish spouse. Once your spouse sees how much better you are after you have implemented the MB system, you have a good chance of enticing them to implement some aspects of MB themselves.

Or better yet, call the Harleys and arrange for phone counselling. That way they are the ones encouraging your spouse to implement MB, and you are not costing yourself love bank points by trying to edcuate your spouse as to the advantages of MB.

Bump. Hi, grim, why don't we talk about you for a minute instead of other people?

I get the idea from the other thread you are posting on that one opinion you hold that is offensive to your wife goes something like this:

"My wife shouldn't feel that porn is such a problem."

There's a problem with this opinion. It's not just an opinion; it's a criticism. Any time you tell your wife how she should feel, that's a disrespectful judgment.

Here's the same opinion without criticism:

"I have no problem with porn. I enjoy it, and it doesn't bother me for either one of us to use it."

I haven't heard Dr. Harley say this specifically about porn, but I have heard him make comments in Joyce's presence to the effect that "Sure, I wouldn't mind having multiple wives. That'd be great for a man. The reason I don't do it is it would offend and hurt my wife terribly." See how he combines his opinion with thoughtfulness toward his wife? That's why he and Joyce have been in love throughout their 45+ year marriage.

What bothers me about this topic is some of the ignorance, denial, and dishonesty surrounding it so that's why I commented on the other thread until I was censored. Basically my opinion is that it's not my fault if I naturally like porn and I know I'm not the only one (it sounds like a majority of men do) so that's why I think it's unrealistic for my wife to think it's completely wrong for me to like it when it is not something where I had any choice in the matter. However, I don't want to fight with her over this anymore because I'm tired of it and it's not worth the hassle so as far as I'm concerned she can go ahead and think she is absolutely right and snoop on my computers and phone all she wants if that will make her feel better and I'll just keep my true feelings to myself because that's the only thing that seems to work in this case.

Wow. So if something naturally appeals to you, you should be allowed to do it in spite of how it makes your wife feel? Some people naturally like stealing, or raping. Or on the other hand, I naturally like to overeat chocolate. But that would make me fat, and that would make dh unhappy. So I don't. I'm not mad at him for his wanting me to be reasonably in shape. That's his preference and I respect that.

Do you get this yet? Do you really think hidden bitterness and playing the martyr in your own mind is the answer? Wow.

The thing about respect is you take the right and wrong out of it. Regardless of your wife's feelings of the personal morality of the subject, she should just say it bothers her. And you can feel that it is perfectly acceptable. But if you want to have a good marriage, that can be achieved by both of you eliminating the disrespect (on this and all issues), and limiting yourselves to activities and sexual expressions that both of you can be enthusiastic about.


Why should you have to keep your true feelings to yourself? Why can't you just tell her you think there's nothing in the world wrong with it, but you won't do it because you know it bothers her? Doesn't she already know you feel this way, by now?

I never said that anyone should be allowed to do whatever they feel like whenever they feel like it in spite of any real problems it causes. It would be one thing if my wife simply asked me not to do this mostly for her sake because it bothers her but she literally thinks that I should not like porn at all and that I should honestly believe it is completely wrong and because she knows I was viewing it before that already proves there is something wrong with me as if I should really be ashamed of myself.

The decision is yours. If your desire to get your way on this issue is greater than your desire to show love and care for your wife, then continue down the path you are on.

She thinks something is wrong with you. You apparently think something is wrong with her, so it's a push.

Tell me, how is your thinking going to build a better marriage for the two of you?

It isn't.

Use the POJA. Don't do anything unless you BOTH mutually and enthusiastically agree. If she doesn't agree with porn, then you don't use it.

I'm not saying porn is a good idea under the POJA either. But it's pretty clear that she is against it, and if you are practicing MB, then that should be enough to eliminate it from your life.

So the question is still on the table, which is more important, your marriage or getting your way? There does not appear to be a both answer to this particular question.

It appears you have to decide, one or the other.

I'm going to go out on a speculative whim here, but I am guessing that if your attitude toward your wife changed, her disrespectful judgement of how you should feel would disappear.

Can you AT LEAST agree with her that porn harmed your marriage? Can you do that much? I think that would go miles with her. It sounds like you believe that the harm came from her feelings, not your actions, so if you could just straighten that bit out and admit that your chosen (yes, CHOSEN) actions are what hurt your marriage, you could stop DJing her, too!

Well, just tell her then that you think it is okay and are probably not going to change your mind, but that you will refrain from it out of care for her and her feelings. You don't have to change your opinions, and you can express them without criticism. It's up to her then to learn not to be critical.

I already apologized many times and took all the blame and humiliation imaginable for this. I realize that it would be hard for my wife to react any other way than how she did based on her point-of-view so it definitely wasn't such a great idea to push my luck with all the deceit and secrecy in this case.

Grim,

Did you listen to MB radio today? Dr. Harley talked some about porn use. He did mention most men (including himself) enjoy looking at naked women, but that in a marriage it is important for all SF to include your wife.

So then, even Dr. Harley agrees most men enjoy porn, but it is not good for the marriage. Seems like you are hung up on your wife's lack of understanding and her "point of view" about porn.

Why not try Dr. Harley's way?

Grim,

I can't imagine why you should need to take blame and humiliation. That is degrading and doesn't help anything.

I've asked twice now, and it's not rhetorical: why can't you just tell her that you think porn use is okay, but because it bothers her you will not engage in it? And then, if you've committed to that plus transparency, what is the problem? What is making you unhappy at that point? You've both had your say, nobody had to force anyone to change how they felt about anything, so what else is wrong with your marriage? Why can't this be put completely in the past?

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=3881

Around minute 7:00:

Dr. Harley advocates that you be completely open and honest with your wife about your feelings, Grim. He said this while sitting right next to Joyce.

It's like an affair. Men and women are wired for it. They enjoy it, and would definitely enjoy it if circumstances allowed it. Men are wired to enjoy looking at the naked female form. No need to lie or be dishonest about that. I enjoyed it as well, and only stopped because I did not like the consequences it was having in my life.

Around minute 8:00:

The next segment is very illuminating as well:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=3882

Particularly around minute 4:00.

I didn't hear this one but I have heard him mention the same general idea several times before. I actually have tried out this suggestion that all sexual experiences should supposedly be with your spouse, not because I heard it from Dr. Harley but because of religious guilt-trips. The problem was that I didn't end up having sex more often anyway so after a while it mostly seemed pointless, unnecessary, and harsh.

At this point, I don't know how much it would really help if I suddenly start bugging my wife about sex all the time when she doesn't feel like it plus she is already not nearly as concerned about masturbation as she was about porn. To be honest, I don't have that much interest in hearing expert opinions about what is wrong or right anymore I just want to understand what is likely to produce good results in practice or not and why. For example, how do we know this exclusive SF rule is so important and what will happen if we just ignore this particular idea?

But Marriage Builders is a solution to exactly that problem!


Dr. Harley rarely presents it as right or wrong. He talks about it in terms of whether it is offensive to your spouse or not. I have listened to nearly 1200 hours of Marriage Builders radio and looked at almost every article on this site, and I have yet to see him lay a religious guilt trip on anybody. Have you?


You can always write Dr. Harley and ask that! But a more important question is: how does your wife feel about it? If your wife feels that the rule is important, that probably counts a whole lot more than Dr. Harley's opinion.

If you ignore the rule and get your sexual needs met, then several things will happen:
* you will be less interested in pursuing your wife and meeting her emotional needs
* you will find regular sex less satisfying than you would if it were your only source of satisfaction
* you may offend your wife so terribly that she is no longer interested in meeting your needs
These are just some examples of why this rule is important.

I am hoping that after you posted this you saw that I had posted links where you could go listen to it.

I worry that she would freak out and that it would turn into a major fight if I ever say something like that. Maybe I will have this conversation with her at some point but I don't really want to anytime soon.

Maybe she will, maybe she won't. It sounds like she needs to work on her disrespectful judgments and angry outbursts.

But even if you don't mention it, what is the pressing issue, exactly? If I am reading correctly, you have stopped the sexual behavior that is objectionable to her. So why isn't this issue buried in the past? I have the idea she knows how you feel, you know how she feels -- so why does it even need to be revisited?

I hear you Grim. I gave it all up, and now depend on an un-interested wife as well. I get resentful and angry when she prefers "Desperate Housewives" to spending romantic time with me.

I don't think it is a pressing issue that necessarily needs to be revisited anytime soon if ever; it just irritates me to see my wife's continued judgmental attitude about it. I guess it's like a grudge where something makes you so angry that you are willing to fight over it sometimes even if it clearly isn't in your own best interest and it would be much easier to just let it go and move on.

So she keeps bringing it up, then, even though you have stopped the behavior that is objectionable to her?

Grim, do you have kids? Any daughters? IME, most men are very cool with pornography until the thought of their own daughter being on screen or on a pole getting oogled by random strangers sets them off. I actually know someone who thought strip clubs were fine and harmless places until his daughter went to work in one. I don't know if I've ever seen someone so angry and disgusted before then.

That's something that's different in the way men and women think. I *think* markos would agree with me, and I know he will correct me if I am wrong: men are linear thinkers and proceed through I like this, nobody is immediately harmed, it is pleasurable for me and appears pleasurable for others, so it is good and I will continue. Women are circular thinkers and proceed through I like this, nobody is immediately harmed, it is pleasurable for me, but i wonder about the story of this girl and her family and if her mother would get pleasure from watching her daughter do this and that's kinda gross and now I feel filthy and what if it was my daughter and how can I keep her from going down this road where people that she doesn't even know are watching the most intimate acts she can do and what kind of man am I raising in my son, does he treat women like this, omg i hope my grandchildren aren't being whacked off to by some middle aged greasy man and what is the world coming to...

you get my drift. I know I can't change your mind about porn, but I hope I can at least help you understand that your wife's view on pornography likely has less to do with you than it does with basically the entire human race and generations to come. I think we all enjoy some titillation, but the healthiest among us aren't hedonistic and porn feeds hedonism.

Grim, my $.02 for free.

It sounds like your wife has love busting conversation habits, and some selfish demands. She shouldn't be upset when you want equal conversation about things you like.

As for the porn, my wife made me realize that it upset her because she felt she could not compete with it. It made her feel ugly by comparison. As a result, she hides her body from me. I'm hoping one day (soon?!?), she'll be happy with herself again. I don't yet know how to overcome this. She also feels like it was an 'affair'.

To me it is somewhat irrelevant whether porn is bad for society or not because either way it is never going away. Regardless of what I do it's not going to make much of a difference compared to all the millions of men that will continue to view porn no matter what people do to discourage it. Also, there is so much free porn on the internet and it is so cheap to make and distribute now that I doubt that many of them can continue to do this as a full-time occupation anymore and there are many no-name amateurs in porn now.

I don't have any children yet but I doubt that my opinion would change much in this case if I had children. I already know that if I had a daughter then I definitely wouldn't want her working as a stripper or in hard-core porn but at the same time I wouldn't want her to be so worried about porn that she thinks being completely porn-free is the single most important factor when choosing a mate or that if she finds out that her husband has already been viewing porn sometimes and doesn't permanently stop then she should divorce him over this expecting to trade up.

I don't know if my wife really thinks about some of these big-picture questions that much. She has watched reality shows about Playboy Playmates and I never once heard her say something like, "Those poor helpless and exploited women that have to take their clothes off this way; how degrading and unfair." As far as I can tell she didn't think there was anything that unusual about this arrangement but that doesn't mean she would let me keep any Playboy (or even Maxim) magazines at home.

My impression is that my wife objects to porn mostly because she has been taught that it is wrong and she thinks her dad and other married men she knows aren't ever viewing porn so there is no reason why I should either. On top of that it is threatening to her because it makes her feel insecure, jealous, and possessive almost as if I had a crush on real women that live nearby but to me it is simply a harmless diversion completely disconnected from real life.

Yes, my wife continues to bring it up and constantly nags me to not do this and tries to make me feel guilty about hurting her feelings before. I'm sure I will continue to view porn sometimes just not very often and I doubt that I will ever get caught again. It was a half-hearted agreement from the beginning because if it was up to me then I obviously would have preferred for my wife to just let me keep my porn stash and look the other way. My primary objective in avoiding porn is simply to reduce the risk of making my wife upset and I also don't like having secrets to hide all the time. However, if I confess to my wife every time I slip up in my efforts to do what she wants it will only make her feel worse and it is emotionally draining for both of us to fight about it so I feel like I have no choice but to hide the truth sometimes.

So what? She objects. Do you love her enough to let that be sufficient, or are you going to try to educate her as to why it's wrong for her to be against porn.

Because you are coming across that way.

She is against porn. Let's assume that will not change. In fact, by the POJA, you can ask if there is anything that would make her enthusiastic about it. But if she says no, then I think it's a pretty much done deal.

The views of the posters here on porn do not matter regarding your marriage. The two views to consider are your wife's because you are married to her and Dr Harley, the expert who runs this site.

I'd suggest that your wife's view is most important because you are trying to establish a close, intimate, romantic relationship with her.

Dr Harley says that trying to educate a spouse is (or can be) a love buster. So trying to educate your wife on why she should change her view on porn is unlikely to make your marriage better.

So my advice is to accept that it's unacceptable to her, and decide how you are going to proceed with that being the case.

The bottom line question still applies. Which is more important, getting you way regarding porn, or having a great marriage. You say it doesn't have to be one or the other. However, it appears your wife may have a different view. I suggest you operate with the idea that she will not change her view.

How can you make it work if that's the case?

So let me understand this. Your keeping your porn stash is more important that your marriage? Because that's how it comes across.

You knowingly engage, or at least do not take serious measure to avoid behavior that you know makes withdrawals from the love bank.

The problem is not your wife's view on porn. The problem is your view on not following agreements you make.

Use the POJA, make and keep an agreement you BOTH can enthusiastically embrace. You avoid all the pitfalls of other types of agreements if you follow the POJA.

Then your wife will continue to be unhappy and will eventually fall out of love with you because porn is more important to you than her feelings. Anything that is more important than your marriage will eventually destroy it. That is where you are at.

Do you have the balls to tell her this?

Of course I'm not going to tell her that unless I start to feel ready for divorce or at least ready to be in the doghouse for a few days minimum over this. If telling the truth is basically punished harshly and dishonesty is indirectly encouraged then what do you expect to hear?

Are you a man or a mouse? Good grief...........

The point is that if she knew the truth, SHE might be ready for divorce. And she has the right to make that choice. Not telling her only denies her the freedom to make a choice about her own life. In other words, you would be manipulating her into staying married to you by withholding the truth from her.

Why not tell her and let her decide if she wants to remain married to a porn freak? That is her right, after all.

And she will eventually catch you. Then she will be angry about the porn and the dishonesty.

I have no intention to try to re-educate my wife or change her mind; like I said before it's not worth the hassle of fighting with her about it. It's not that important to me and I already got rid of my porn stash. My point is that I see it as mostly a misunderstanding where porn means different things to her than it does to me not that there aren't any understandable reasons why she would think this way.

Apparently it is important enough to risk divorce as you said in your last post that you would continue the salami slapping:
Even though you admit that she might divorce you or punish you.

How does keeping this from your wife fall in the Policy of Radical Honesty?

Dr. Harley explains if we follow POJA and PORH everything else will be taken care of with these two policies.
The Policy of Radical Honesty

I don't understand why your answer begins with "yes," when your answer is really "no." You did not stop the behavior that is objectionable to her, so she still objects. That's not surprising.

How about a trade: you agree to never have another sexual experience that she does not approve of or without her knowledge, if she agrees not to dwell on this part of the past and to never bring it up again? You could get her to quit bringing it up, easy!!!

No offense but I get the impression that you have misinterpreted the Marriage Builders principles and what is actually going on in real life in a way that is clearly inaccurate and not very helpful to anyone in this case. In the worst cases it could cause permanent damage to people's relationships. First of all I don't think you realize how common masturbation and porn really are for married men these days and how hard it can be for men to stop with these habits permanently.

Dr. Harley already said that it is normal for men to enjoy viewing pornography but that they should not do so mostly out of consideration for their wife's feelings and because he thinks all sexual experiences should ideally be with your spouse. That is basically it in a nutshell as far as I can tell. Am I missing something here? However, here you are acting as if liking porn is a rare and incurable disease. Where are these personal opinions outside of the basic Marriage Builders principles coming from? Is it because you are a woman that never really understood the way the majority of men will typically think and act when no one is around to frown on it?

Just because many men don't want to talk about it that doesn't mean it isn't happening behind the scenes. Get real; if women come here looking for answers and hear your own questionable ideas in this case and take them seriously will that really help them deal with the situation in constructive way or would they be more likely to fly off the handle and overreact with disrespectful judgments and possibly even call it quits or separate from their husbands unnecessarily? Also, is this type of judgmental and unforgiving attitude about porn going to make men want to open up and tell the truth about it or is it more likely to make them want to hide the truth and simply tell you what you want to hear?

You are hiding the truth. Tell your wife the truth. Let her decide. Right now, you are deceiving her in order to keep her married to you. You're not hiding the truth because she is judgmental, you are hiding the truth to avoid the consequences of your choices.

Please tell us how we are misinterpreting the MB principles.

What specific principle are you referring to?

How is it being misinterpreted?

Just because something is common doesn't mean you have to do it.

Prostitution is common. Drug abuse is common. Want to be married to a drug addicted prostitute? Or better yet, be deceived into being married to a drug addicted prostitute?

Yes, you are missing the whole point of Marriage Builders if you believe that dishonesty is a good approach to marriage. Nowhere does MB advise that you trick someone into being married to you against her will. Your wife should be the one to decide if she wants to stay married to a dishonest man who uses porn behind her back.

If there is nothing wrong with porn use, as you say, then you should be man enough to tell your wife your reasons. Not telling her is cowardly and passive aggressive. She will eventually find out about it and will be more likely to divorce you because of the added dishonesty. Most women don't want to be married to a salami slapper, much less a dishonest man and that is her right. You should give her the option of making an informed decision about her choice of a spouse since that is what you choose to be.


If you choose to be a salami slapper and a dishonest person, you should be man enough to stand up for those choices. The fact that you want to hide those behaviors should indicate to you there is something wrong. If there is nothing wrong with that, then why hide it?

Please don't lecture MelodyLane about whether she does or does not understand Marriage Builders principles. She has been doing this for over a DECADE. That's over 25% of Dr. Harley's career. She's spoken to him personally on the radio and attended his seminar, she's used MB principles to recover her own marriage, and has helped hundreds or even thousands of other couples to do the same.

While I have occasionally caught a few things from Dr. Harley that MelodyLane did not know or got wrong, the idea that she's misunderstanding Marriage Builders on the issue of porn is laughable to anybody who has listened to Dr. Harley regularly. She is posting here exactly what he says, and what he has said since at least 2006, probably longer than that.

The problem is not that MelodyLane is misunderstanding Marriage Builders principles. The problem is that you don't believe it will work, or you don't want to do it. That's all right; there's no law that says you have to run your marriage according to these principles. But there's no law that says your wife has to be happy about what you do, either! You see?

No, you have this exactly right.


No, she is repeating exactly what Dr. Harley says, and she is trying to get across to you that most women are absolutely DISGUSTED by pornography!


So you are basically saying that a man who says he doesn't use porn is lying?

My wife put a keylogger on my computer to check if I was using porn. I thought that was cute. She found out that I was not.


grim, we can help you use Marriage Builders principles to have a better marriage, but you are going to have to get focused on fixing your marriage, not on trying to tell MelodyLane or anyone else how to post to other people.

It sounds like you think a "constructive" way for a woman to deal with porn in marriage is to just accept that this is normal.

But Dr. Harley would completely disagree with you, grim, as would most of us.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you meant by "constructive."


It is not for you to say that it is "unnecessary" when someone else separates from their spouse. Talk about judgment!


grim, forgiveness has to be predicated upon repentance. A woman who "forgives" her porn using husband every day for years is going to shred her soul. Dr. Harley would never counsel a wife (or husband) to forgive an unrepentant spouse, and neither would we.


You don't need to make them open up and tell the truth; all you gotta do is check up on them!

Do you want help with your marriage, or do you just want to weigh in on how people should advise wives?

Thanks Markos!

grimreaper, if you want to know what Dr Harley says about porn addictions, you should listen to todays radio show. On it, he discusses how the first step to resolving porn addiction [or any other addictions] is to tell everyone. That would include your wife.

The next step is to change your life in a way so you won't be tempted and won't have the opportunity to view porn.

Dr Harley knows that men use porn, just as he knows that men have affairs. He knows people lie, steal and murder too. Doesn't mean he advocates those things! Your solution is to STOP IT if you want to stay married.

Stop lying and stop messing around with porn.

Do you want to stay married and create a happy, romantic marriage where all your needs are met? Or would you rather be a dishonest salami slapper who hides out like a cockroach? The choice is yours.

I did not see an answer to my question. What do you think about this suggestion, grim? I think this is the perfect way to get your wife to quit bringing this up over and over again, and then both she and you will be one step happier.

What do you think?

grim, if your concern is with other people's marriages and helping women who come looking for answers, then my suggestion is that you establish your own website and use it to advocate your ideas about what is best for their marriages.

But if your concern is with your marriage, then we can show you how to use Dr. Harley's ideas to make your marriage better.

Something you might miss in the middle of all of MelodyLane's posts is this:

"Do you want to stay married and create a happy, romantic marriage where all your needs are met?"

I don't have to use porn or whatever, because when I focus on building a marriage that is happy and romantic for my wife, her sex drive goes up, and my needs get met. And having used porn for years in the past, I can testify that a happy marital sex life beats porn and solo flying so badly that I would never want to go back to that.

He doesn't like his wife and feels like meeting her needs is more work than he is willing to do, and only accidentally meets her need for FS because he'd be doing that anyway.

I think he chose an apt name. He is intentionally killing his wife with neglect and deception. Grim, will you send your wife here?

I didn't see an answer to my question either.

Back off, markos, and join the queue!

Me three!!

You're in America now, lady!! It's LINE, not queue!

It's still queue for computer programmers.

traitor!!

I don't think my sneaky approach does fit with radical honesty very well but if there is only one acceptable answer and you don't agree with it then it's not necessarily a problem that can ever be solved. Sometimes it's difficult if not impossible to be honest and enthusiastically agree with what your partner wants at the same time. It's easy enough if one side concedes defeat but I'm still trying to figure out how this would work in complex situations where both sides feel strongly about their position. Why can't people just agree to disagree and live with the differences sometimes?

WOW!!!! I'm stunned. You do know that your character is revealed by who you are and what you do when no one is looking right?

I can't believe someone is trying to justify porn use because 'everyone does it'. My goodness.

I wasn't saying that everyone here is misinterpreting all the Marriage Builders principles in general like radical honesty, POJA, love busters, etc. I was specifically talking about some of the name calling (disrespectful judgments) I am hearing and the idea that it is unusual for married men to ever masturbate or view porn. I don't remember Dr. Harley ever saying anything to directly support these inaccurate beliefs and judgmental attitudes about porn and masturbation. It seems like he said that he has seen some cases where "excessive" masturbation led to some men losing the desire or ability to have sex with their wives but I don't believe he ever said that this will always be the case if you masturbate at all. So then if you start with these observations of a few examples and distort his original conclusions it gets misinterpreted into the general idea that masturbation is supposedly a one-to-one substitution for sex where men can generally only do one or the other which is definitely not true.

Actually I feel like this is already the case more than 99% of the time. I have tried making long-term promises like that a few times but after several months I always ended up breaking these promises so it is starting to seem pointless to think it is even possible to do that permanently. Maybe at some point I will open up and talk about all this honestly with my wife but I don't really see the need at this point. To be honest the whole situation seems completely ridiculous to me. Seriously, all this over what? Looking at breasts in pictures or videos? Shouldn't most people in the world have more serious problems to worry about? How did this end up being such a big deal?

The goal is for both sides to feel strongly about the marriage. At that point, negotiating becomes easy.

Just to play with you for a minute, because I don't think you are serious about your marriage at all, let's look at a potential negotiation about porn. You state all the reasons you would like to continue, all the things you find appealing (different breasts, work-free sex, fantasy), she states her objections (not being your object of lust, not given the opportunity to fulfill your fantasies) and then you negotiate to get what you want while not giving her what she doesn't want. Without getting too graphic, I think a little perky top dressing while servicing could be an acceptable negotiating point, as could locations and role-playing.

I think if you treated your wife like a sexy beastwoman, she would return the favor.

But if you're stuck on OTHERS and ALONE, you will end up alone, just like you like it.

Whoops.

Because what you're doing kills her.

Do you really understand POJA? POJA

You'll be less likely to break those promises if you were completely transparent to your wife, and knew she would be checking up on you.

If it's not that big a deal, then it shouldn't be that hard to just stop it to make your wife feel better, now would it be?

If its no big deal then why risk your marriage over it? Why degrade yourself by lying about it? Just tell her since it is no big deal. Who would risk their marriage and throw away their integrity over "no big deal?"

So why capture it?

You know me, I ain't taking back nothin'!

ITs funny how some people like to argue and defend porn use .. i can attest that it is INFACT very damaging. Seen it over and over again ow damaging it is.. how degrading it is .. and how the ladies feel when their man prefers porn to the real thing. I am disgusted with myself for having this issue in the past and could never turn back to it.

WHen I get old and grey (grey is here already >.<) I want to be able to look at my wife and not compare her to something she can not compete with. I DO NOT want a contrast effect. QUiting porn use was one of the best things I ever did for my marriage.

MNG

Hey, grim, I think what you are missing in Dr. Harley's concepts is his explanation of Type A and Type B resentment. Do a search on this forum for that concept (I don't believe there's an article about it). I think it will explain to you how porn use, POJA, and PORH fit together in Dr. Harley's plan, and why.

Here it is:

Type A and Type B resentment

No, nobody said this. Dr. Harley thinks it's very common for men to masturbate and view porn, and he knows full well it is common in bad marriages. You are misreading.


What judgmental attitude? If you want to view porn, go right ahead! Enjoy! Just quit judging your wife for how she feels about it! She will probably always feel horrified; that will probably never change.

Learning about Dr. Harley's Type A and Type B resentment will help you understand what he recommends for cases where both sides feel strongly.

The "default policy" of the POJA (never do nothing without the enthusiastic consent of your spouse) is not supposed to be a happy state of affairs. It is supposed to be uncomfortable, in order to motivate the couple to find a happy, win-win solution as an alternative. Obviously following the "do nothing" default policy of the POJA here would be extremely uncomfortable for you.

As far as living with the differences, married people do agree all the time to just live with love busters from each other, like independent behavior (doing things without the enthusiastic agreement of your spouse). This is why only 20% of marriages are happy. Dr. Harley explains what that 20% does different in order to be happy, and the main thing they do different is complain to each other and address complaints and find alternatives.

There's not only one acceptable answer. You are engaging in a false dichotomy fallacy. You are seeing only two alternatives. We would like to help you see other alternatives, so you aren't stuck with "be extremely unhappy because I'm not using porn" versus "use porn and hide part of my life from my wife and/or make her extremely unhappy and much less likely to meet my emotional needs." Frankly, both of those two options SUCK if you ask me, and I would like to help you escape that.

I'm looking right now at Dr. Harley's workbook, at his worksheets for overcoming independent behavior. Part 3 has a worksheet with the following questions:
1. What bothers you about this independent behavior?
2. What doesn't bother you about this independent behavior?
3. Your spouse engages in this behavior because it is enjoyable to him/her. How might the behavior be changed so that it is enjoyable for both of you?

Right after that is a worksheet titled "Independent Behavior Possibilities Inventory." It has instructions that include the following:

"Please name and describe activities that might replace the independent behavior. Keep adding activities to this list until you find one that meets with your mutual agreement. Your goal is to find a behavior or activity that addresses the reasons that the independent behavior existed, yet changes it to accommodate the feelings and interests of the other spouse as well. You should both carry a copy of this inventory with you throughout the day so that when you think of a possible solution, you can write it down."

Notice how the whole attitude of "judgment" is completely taken out with Dr. Harley's approach? He wants you to see how good a marriage can be when it accommodates the feelings and desires of BOTH husband and wife, not just the ideas of one or the other.

It sounds simple enough on the surface but it becomes much more complicated when you try to apply it to both sides of the equation. As I understand it the policy of joint agreement is mostly about showing concern for how your spouse feels about any decisions that involve both of you and not trying to force them to accept your own agenda or try to gain an unfair advantage at their expense. So if you make a suggestion and your spouse says no to it then you should just let it go and maybe try to work it out later if it is clearly not more important than your marriage or the quality of your relationship.

I understand the general idea that even if you manage to get your own way and your spouse is willing to put up with it that doesn't necessarily mean that it is in your own best interest to continue doing something obnoxious that causes your spouse to have negative feelings about you. This is all fine and good but what I am hearing in this particular case sounds a little too one-sided for my taste. For example, why can't I turn this POJA principle completely around and say that if my wife thought this way then she should cut me some slack, stop making such a big deal out of porn, and stop making unrealistic demands as if it should just be easy for me to never view porn again and feel happy about it? What makes porn non-negotiable? Is it because we supposedly already know that it is always wrong, disgusting, filthy, and despicable?

I guess if you are absolutely certain that you are right then the basic POJA is no longer necessary and now it is alright to go ahead and play hardball to get your way at all costs and make all the disrespectful judgments about it that you want. Is that how it works? I could see the value of a zero tolerance approach like this with things like physical abuse or drug addictions where the damage done and danger of putting up with it are real but I don't know if it is such a great idea over differences of opinion especially with a natural tendency like this that is going to keep coming up over and over again in future generations. Basically my main point is that there never was a real joint agreement because I never really had any say in the final decision so I don't see why I should be expected to honestly feel good about it and really buy into this as a permanent solution.

The answer to your question is found in the concept of Type A and Type B resentment. Have you gotten a chance to take a look at that, yet? Type A/B resentment explains why you can't "turn POJA around." That's actually a pretty common question here, and I don't think we do a good enough job of answering it.


No, when it comes to POJA porn is not different than any other issue. The question you are asking there, we see people here asking the exact same question about things as innocuous as going out to eat Mexican food or buying romaine lettuce.

You wanna know what's weird, Grim?


Defending jerkin' the gherkin so passionately.

15 pages, and you are still hung up on that?

WHY?

Seriously, dude. Wouldn't you rather have mind-blowing sex with your wife, than to sit there with Palmela Handerson?

Rosie Palm is a horrible lover, man.

No, you shouldn't be happy about it, and it's not realistic to expect that you'll be happy about it.

To make your marriage a happy marriage, the two of you will have to find an alternative to porn that makes you both happy.


You are misunderstanding the Policy of Joint Agreement. "Do nothing" is never supposed to be a permanent solution. It's an uncomfortable situation, which is supposed to motivate the two of you to find a permanent solution you are both enthusiastic about. If either one of you is not enthusiastic about "doing nothing" on a particular issue, then that means you are not done negotiating and finding an alternative.

Take a look at my posts today. There is some helpful (I think) explanation about how this works.

Thanks for that insightful contribution to the discussion; I appreciate your concern. People were asking questions and bringing up interesting new ideas I had never heard before so I tried to respond to some of them to help understand what Marriage Builders is all about and how it works in different cases. To me porn is basically one of many visible symbols of the larger issue of who gets to decide what is best for me and the fact that my own home feels more like a prison sometimes than somewhere I can feel comfortable and enjoy my free time as much as possible. Sure that is easy enough to deal with a week at a time but if I look forward to an entire lifetime of the same thing it can be much harder to accept. Also, I have already tried going long amounts of time without ever viewing porn or "jerkin' the gherkin" as you put it but I didn't end up having sex more often anyway because half the time my wife doesn't feel like it or else she isn't even around to begin with so how does pointless and unnecessary deprivation really benefit me in any way in cases like that?

Now we're getting somewhere, I think.

Why does your wife not feel like sex half of the time?

Also, what puts her in the mood the other half of the time?

Why does your home feel like a prison?

Why is your wife never around?

These are the larger issues you haven't been telling us about, because apparently we all think it's more fun to talk about porn!

Depriving myself of porn and masturbation doesn't hurt at all in my marriage, because I know how to get my wife enthusiastic about sex, at least most of the time. She's around all the time, as am I, and our house doesn't feel like a prison to me, although it does to her, so we are moving.

I would like to help you get into a similar arrangement, where hopefully you are having fantastic sex all the time and not giving porn a second thought, you know?

My home is like a prison because I am basically not allowed to do what I want and I have someone constantly monitoring everything I do and say closely and telling me what to do and when. So I feel like I have to constantly put on an act and worry about what she wants and exepcts as if anything I want does not matter. Things have improved somewhat since I started saying no to more demands my wife tries to pressure me into than I used to but with porn I think I still need to be careful and not do anything crazy like being completely honest about it and letting her decide how to react to the truth because she feels so emotional about it and I already know she will not understand very well if confronted with this information all at once.

Maybe I just have a stronger sex drive than my wife and one difference is that even when she is interested it takes her much longer to get into it and really enjoy it but I am always ready to go in an instant. Actually I don't think my sex life is really that bad on average because I hear horror stories about some couples going weeks or months without sex so maybe I have been lucky to get at least once or twice per week. I don't know of any consistent way to predict when my wife will be in the mood or not; it seems completely random to me. I know that if she is mad at me because of something I said or did then I will definitely get the cold shoulder and she will be like, "Don't touch me"; so of course I am going to masturbate sometimes when she acts like that for very long.

My wife has her own interests that she keeps fairly busy with and spends lots of time on Facebook or watching her favorite shows so then by the time she comes to bed I am usually so tired that I just go to sleep. So sometimes it is just much easier and faster to masturbate. For example, I can masturbate in the morning to help take the edge off and start the day off right and still easily make it to work on time but I doubt that my wife would want to get up early enough to have sex before work on a consistent basis. My wife is not really gone very long to the point of spending nights alone very often. What I meant was that if she is out shopping or visiting her friends or family then what harm does it do and what difference does it make to her if I masturbate while she is not even around especially if I still have sex with her the same day if she wants to?

Certainly I wouldn't mind having sex more often than I do but to be honest I think that even if I had sex 10 times as much to the point that it starts to feel like too much work I would still want to view porn sometimes on top of that simply because it is basically instant gratification that requires no real effort. My point is that sex, porn, and masturbation are all completely different things that each have their own advantages and disadvantages depending on the situation. Personally I think it is possible to achieve a healthy and comfortable balance of all three to the point that you are fully satisfied without getting burned out.

So what you are saying is that even though gourmet food is available, you will still go for the junk food because gourmet food is not worth the effort for you.

That's essentially what I read in what you are saying.

Not to mention that you know the junk food kills your wife, but you don't seem to care.

The reason you feel like this is because you act like a child in your home by hiding your true feelings. You even use childish verbiage: "she won't allow me." You don't act like an equal partner in your marriage when you are not honest with her. And the reason you are not honest with her is because - again, as a child - you can't face her anger. See, a grown up man can be honest with his wife because he is willing to change behavior that is reckless and destructive to his marriage.

One of the main reasons there is this disparity of power in your marriage is due to your porn. [behavior you have to hide] The other is that you have never learned to negotiate agreements that benefit you both. If you can do that, you wouldn't have to hide like a boy.

The disadvantage is that it is bad for your marriage and you know it. You can't even tell your wife you do this. It is really revolting to think of a man viewing porn and jacking himself off. I suspect you addicted to slapping the ole salami and anything that comes before your marriage will eventually destroy it. It is clear that your self pleasuring is more important to you than you wife's feelings.

The way I would put it is that you don't need to live on a strict diet of either one thing or the other because you can have junk food for breakfast if that's the only thing available or the only thing you have time for but that doesn't mean you can't still have gourmet food for dinner if you are willing to wait long enough and pay the price for it. Of course I care about what effect knowing about every time I view porn would have on my wife; that's half the reason I don't want to tell her the truth about it because what she doesn't know won't hurt her.

Lying is very hurtful to marriages. It is one of the most damaging lovebusters. I can see how it already creates an imbalance of power in your relationship. You sneak around like a boy in fear of mommy catching you and getting mad at you. You create that dynamic with your childish behavior and essentially become the child in the relationship.

The real reason you don't want to tell her is because you are scared of her. If you were concerned about "hurting" her you would stop hurting her.

And as long as you lie to her there can never be any true intimacy.

Unfortunately, there are very few what you don't know doesn't hurt you scenarios, especially in marriage.

What do you have to lose by actually living out the principles of the program? If your home is a prison now, why not risk it getting better by living out the program?

If it's still bad after you've followed the coaching and you are skilled as judged by another who knows the program, then you don't have to stay in the prison.

You hold the key. One of the keys is to really understand this program and become skilled in putting it in practice. If after you really use the entire program (and not just the pieces you find comfortable) thing are still not getting better, simply say you are not willing to remain in a bad marriage.

If she won't get on board, then send her from the team.

But as long as you are half-assing it, I don't think things will get better.

Apparently you want something different. The question is are you willing to do ALL the work?

You are right, she may not do anything. If that's the case, then you have your answer. You are not forced to stay with someone who will not be your partner.

But you are not even close to that decision point. You still have not decided to commit to being a trustworthy partner for your wife. Until you can be open and honest with her, and not think that you'll just hide things, things will not get better.

I suspect that even if she does not know the details, she probably can tell when you are off the reservation with respect to your agreements with her.

The way I would put it is that by NOT doing things that are offensive to my wife, by meeting her emotional need for honesty and openness, by never being disrespectful of her at all even when I disagree with her, and by meeting her emotional needs, she has become enthusiastic about giving me gourmet meals of my emotional needs much more often, and that's only on the increase.

They way I would put it is this;


The physical stimulation applied during masturbation is desensitizing your little soldier, and makes SF with a woman less pleasing.

Your brain is being overstimulated with novelty from the visual buffet that is porn, making not just your wife, but nearly any flesh-and-blood woman less appealing.

Your arousal associations are also being rewired to visuals that do not occur in real life situations; a view which you cannot take without first removing all of your vertebrae, as well as positioning that would be far too uncomfortable to be stimulating.


Know what, though? You won't figure these things out until you cut the porn use out completely.

Hi GrimReaper, just finished reading through your thread, and I have some comments based on my own experience with a failed marriage. I was in a similar situation as you are where I felt near-constant criticism and rejection, and I felt I couldn't be myself in my own home. It seemed as soon as I did something my wife wanted, she either found something wrong with it, or 10 more things got added to the list of things she wanted from me. Like you, I was a conflict avoider, and rather than apply POJA (which I didn't know about at the time), it was easier to just agree with her. But that strategy did not work, and I eventually ended up in the state of withdrawal. (Again, I didn't know what withdrawal was at the time, but now that I know about it, I know that's where I was.) I reached a point where, like you, the thought of ending my marriage didn't bother me. Divorce was inconvenient, but I felt no attachment to the marriage. If it hadn't been for my kids, I may have divorced sooner, but I wanted to wait for them to grow up. In hindsight, I should've addressed my marital problems sooner because remaining in the state of withdrawal for as long as I did (at least 5 years) made it extremely difficult to get out, and in fact I never did. Had I known about MB principles then, it's possible my marriage could've been saved, but at the time, there was so much pent-up resentment, I don't know if I would've been rational enough to apply MB principles; all I could think about was escaping.

I think you have three choices:

1) Maintain the status quo, in which case you'll stay in the state of withdrawal, and you'll either divorce, separate permanently without divorcing, or somehow co-exist in an unhappy loveless marriage. This is what will happen if you do nothing. This is what happened to me, and so I would advise one of the next two choices.

2) Divorce right now so you don't have to go through a long period of withdrawal.

3) Work on your marriage to bring it back to a state of fulfillment for both you and your wife.

I agree with the posters who commented on the hiding of some of your activities from your wife. Not only does she deserve to know who she's married to, you don't want to live in hiding in your marriage. That's conflict avoidance and a sure-fire way to withdrawal. Wouldn't you rather be in a marriage where you can be yourself? Where you can express yourself openly to your wife, let her know your deepest feelings, and know hers too? And through shared emotional intimacy, learn things about yourselves that wouldn't be possible on your own? Given your current emotional state, it might seem an unreachable goal to have that with your wife, but on a theoretical level, I hope you agree that it would be nice if somehow things could be turned around and you DID achieve that with your wife.

You've mentioned that your wife is not interested in reading books, filling out questionnaires, etc. She too may be in or near the state of withdrawal. If so, it'll probably be tricky trying to bring her back to a state where she wants to work on your marriage. If you can't, and she remains unwilling to work on your marriage, I think the MB advice is to follow the Plan A, Plan B approach. Before doing this however, make sure you thorougly understand what Plan A is, and make sure you're willing to follow through with Plan B if Plan A doesn't work; otherwise, you'll just build up more resentment. If you CAN bring her to a state of wanting to work on your marriage, it sounds like the telephone counseling available on the MB website is very good. I've never tried it, but I've seen nothing but praise for it, especially in helping motivate spouses to work on their marriage.

In the state you're in, you're probably in react mode, tip-toeing around your wife to disturb the peace as little as possible. A lot of your thoughts and actions are in response to hers. Trying to communicate with her has proved fruitless, you're losing hope and motivation, yet you're not willing to throw in the towel just yet. And you came to MB for help. You've received a lot of advice on this thread, many links to MB principles, radio archives, etc. I think you're looking for an "ah-ha" moment, something that will give you clarity to think through your situation. Until then, you feel stuck, not knowing what to do. I think your ah-ha moment will come with introspection; I think you should dig down deep inside yourself and find out what it is you want. What will truly satisfy you. Make sure it's what YOU want and not what you feel you SHOULD want or what someone else feels you should want. The answer might not come quickly, you might lose sleep over it, but with effort it will eventually come, and you'll know when it does. Once you know clearly what you want, it'll be easier to make decisions.

Hope this helps, and best wishes as you work through your marriage.

Please listen to these radio clips of Dr. Harley talking about if both spouses aren't on board to work on the M that it probably won't work. The xh was addicted to porn also.

Radio Clip on Both spouses need to work on Marriage
Segment #2
Segment #3

Dr. Harley says we must be in a marriage that we take extraordinary care for each other.

I don�t get this at all. The analogy is really flawed. You�re not hurting someone�s feelings by deciding what you�re going to have for breakfast.
I guess I don�t understand why you just don�t man up and tell her that you�re going to keep watching porn regardless of how she feels or respect her feelings enough not to watch porn. I think it�s much better to be honest even when you�re going to hurt someone�s feelings. And, really, are your hormones in control of you or are you in control of your hormones?
Your wife is creeped out by you watching porn. This turns her off and thusly bashes those feelings of intimacy towards you. I�d be willing to bet if you put half the effort into making your marriage successful as you do trying to sneak around not hurting your wife�s feelings, your marriage would improve substantially.
See, the sneaking of porn is just a small example of your marital issues. You have got to get out of this thinking of trying not to get caught and move into not doing things that would put you in a situation to get caught.
You�re looking at this like it�s just porn and not a big deal and it�s common for guys to watch and etc etc etc. But what you�re failing to see is you�re dismissing your wife�s feelings rather than validating them and removing the things that are hurting your wife. And what you�re doing is you�re basically saying how you feel trumps her feelings and because you don�t feel the way she does then her feelings are irrational.
Do yourself a favor. Take the next 30 days, and quit watching porn. Ask your wife to sit down and fill out the ENs and LBs worksheets. Then get to work not doing the things that irritate her and start doing those things that makes her happy. The worst that can happen is your marriage doesn�t improve and you can go back to watching porn. But maybe�just maybe some improvements will occur.

If my wife is not that worried about masturbation then where is the problem in that case? There is none that I can see. Where is the problem in the case of porn? Only in my wife's mind as far as I can tell. Basically if I continue to view porn more than ever the truth is that it will never do me any direct harm in terms of any real health problems or too much time or money wasted on this. That's why I don't believe the hype about situations like mine being a legitimate case of addiction because the reasons to stop are not particularly strong or consistent. In the back of my mind I know for a fact that it is really no big deal and no real harm will ever be done by it as long as my wife doesn't know about it. Sure, if my wife thinks it is important for me to avoid porn then that alone makes it important to me. That is fine, and I have been trying hard to play along with this little game the last few years. It is easy enough to avoid porn for a several months but as soon as I fail in this endeavor then it is hard to know what the best thing to do is at that point.

If you would stop using the back of your mind, and instead use your logical left brain, you'd realize the harm being done.

Are you just trolling? I am having a hard time believing someone could be this oblivious.

Then what is the problem with telling her the truth? And if you can easily avoid porn for months, as you claim, then why not just give it up? A problem drinker is defined as such when it becomes a problem in one's life. Porn is a problem in your life because it makes your wife unhappy. It is a problem in your life as evidenced in this thread. Why not just give it up?


Reality is not your friend. Your actions defy your words. If it wasn't harmful you would have no reason to not tell your wife. And if it was "no big deal" you would just stop. But you can't seem to stop. Porn use, dishonesty and masturbation is more important than your wife's feelings.

You would rather be a dishonest man and sneak around like a pimple faced boy than stop using porn and masturbating. It must be very important for you to sacrifice your integrity and your manhood.

I'm not joking around or trying to stir the pot simply for the sake of argument. To me these are serious questions. I get that it is not necessarily the most considerate or commendable thing for me to just go ahead and view porn and hide it directly against what my wife wants and it feels hurtful to her that I have done this. What I meant was that if you look at real drug addicts, compulsive gamblers, etc. then the harm being done is usually undeniable but with porn the reasons to stop are mostly about emotional reactions and personal opinions about it supposedly being wrong, disgusting, etc. So by comparison it doesn't make much sense to me to call most men that don't want to stop viewing porn permanently addicts. It looks like it has basically been taken for granted that men should be expected to stop when they could just as easily argue that the benefits outweigh any costs or risks involved without there being anything clearly unhealthy, unusual, or crazy about it.

GR,

You are on MB. One of the most basic concepts of MB is to not do something that hurts your spouse. Whether or not pornography is okay, in your opinion, does not matter - what matters, is that your wife is hurt by it and therefore is something that you should give up. It is not food, it is not water, it is not air. You can live without it, just like men lived before the internet or Gutenburg's printing press.

It doesn't have to be a universally agreed upon harm in order to harm. It harms your marriage. You know that. You just don't want to give it up, that's all.

You've made it clear in your first that you want to do the "bare minimum" in this marriage. If this is the case, and it has been MONTHS since you have posted this thread, I ask you... what is it that you want from MB. What. Because if months later, you still don't care that the internet porn or magazines hurt your wife, then we can't help you. You can 'enjoy' your mediocre marriage until your wife divorces you because you don't give a rat's bum about hurting her.

And no, I am actually not against porn myself. I am against hurting my spouse.

Why don't you email Dr. Harley? If you leave your phone number you can be a caller on the show?

Email your questions to Joyce Harley at mbradio@marriagebuilders.com.

The value of those emotional reactions is subjective.

To your wife, they are high.

To you, the value of your wife's emotional reactions is near zero.


I'm pretty sure Dr. Harley doesn't think that men who view porn are addicts, typically. He does have an article on sex addiction:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8120_sex_addiction.html

On the other hand, he does typically measure addiction by saying that if it's an area where you can't follow the policy of joint agreement, it's an addiction. But typically the problem with porn is not "can't." It's "won't."


Well, that is the approach Marriage Builders takes: argue that the benefits of limiting yourself to activities that your spouse is enthusiastic about outweighs the costs of giving it up. There's no "should." Of course, one of the benefits of giving up porn etc. is usually an increase in self-esteem. We usually feel better about ourselves when we are not doing things that we feel we have to hide from polite society.

Spouses of drug/alcohol addicts have the same reaction to their spouses, so there is no difference.


The definition of an addict is a person who is addicted. That is what you are. You have posted pages of exhaustive excuses about why you have to continue viewing porn and willingly disrespect your wife and wreck your marriage. A normal person would just stop doing it instead of going to those lengths. It is obvious you have an addiction problem.

my goodness. this may get me reprimanded, but i'm going to be frank.
===============================================================
many women don't like porn because seeing their lover enjoy watching strange men come all over some faking-it woman demeaning. and they know the acrobatics they see on screen will *not* produce mind-numbing orgasms in their bed.

your need for porn over her feelings makes your wife feel like [censored], and you wonder why she doesn't want to have sex with you?

she isn't thrilled about having sex with you, and so takes so "preparing," which you find BORING, and you wonder why she doesn't want to have sex with you?

and maybe, just perhaps, with all your masturbating, your wife knows she *needs* all that preparing, because she has to get to her orgasm in 60 seconds flat, or there won't be one, and you wonder why she doesn't want to have sex with you?

you sound like a 15yo boy going through puberty, needing to spurt all the live-long day. that is NOT remotely attractive. and still you wonder why she doesn't want to have sex with you?
=================================================================

sorry other folks, frankness over.

the porn is really irrelevant. you don't really care about your wife, or your M. and that's why she doesn't want to have sex with you very often.


and there you have it.

mel posted this to you when you first started posting:


and you still haven't had that light-bulb moment.

a long way back you said:


but i see no evidence anywhere of you addressing these. in fact, you have *avoided* them. Ws tend to respond nicely to having their ENs met, because it makes them feel safe and secure/cared for in their M. your whole thread has been ME ME ME ME ME ME.

what is your PLAN (sounds like plan FU)? do you actually want help? i don't think so. you haven't acted on any of the suggestions the good people here have offered you. instead, you want to play pseudo-intellectual conversation games (argue the devil's advocate), getting no one anywhere.

and so i leave you to your thread. good luck with your M.

GrimReaper, whether or not you're addicted to porn I don't know, but addiction can creep up slowly, and you may be on a path towards addiction. I'll bet most people caught in addiction never realize when they cross the line between compulsion and addiction.

These two statements of yours sound like signs of addiction:


In response to this statement of yours,

I think your reason to stop is because of what you say here (my underline):

Hiding secrets is stressful, and stress negatively impacts your health; you are harming yourself by doing something in secret. For you, however, the pleasure of porn outweighs the stress of hiding it, and you don't recognize the consequences. You're hurting yourself without realizing it.

Living in deceit can also be habit forming. You get used to living a lie, your conscience doesn't bother you as much anymore, and it becomes easier to lie about other things to your wife as well, including the ultimate, an affair.

Have you thought about what you really want to do with your situation? Have you thought about the three choices I mentioned earlier: do nothing, divorce, or work on your marriage?

My main issue with pornography and masturbation is that it's a solution one has usually unilaterally implemented. It's a solution that a man can choose over trying to understand his wife, and learn and do what she needs in order for her to become interested in sex with him. In the end, the man cheats his wife of emotional connection and full intimacy, thereby dismissing her in a most profound way. �In this case, the idea that porn, masturbation, and sex with your wife are merely just different flavors of the same thing brings your wife down as meaning no more to you than your hand or moving pictures.�

I liked the ideas in "His needs, her needs" and "Lovebusters" so I was interested in hearing people's experiences applying these principles. I've just been trying to sort out and understand what I could expect to work well in practice or not and why. Some of it has been helpful so far but simply hearing, "Your wife is always right and you need to admit you are wrong" sounds like more of the original problem I started with in the beginning rather than any kind of worthwhile solution and I'm sure if I had gone along with this general advice every time my wife acted like she was really serious about something then it would have only made my marriage much worse (for me) and it would not really have made much of a long-term difference to my wife either.

Maybe I will ask some questions for the radio show at some point but in the case of calling any porn viewing an addiction Dr. Harley already said that it is normal for men to enjoy viewing pornography and that this is not usually an addiction. For example, listen to the following quote:




So why do we keep hearing about porn addiction? It looks like another way to try to demonize porn and blow the issue way out of proportion compared to any real harm it will ever actually do if men don't ever stop viewing it. Sure, if it makes my wife upset then maybe it is easier for me to just avoid it and that's what I have already been doing most of the time anyway.

That explains you perfectly.

• In addition to its self-destructiveness, there's another characteristic of addiction -- guilt and shame
  
  
• It's the amount of something we do or how we do it that usually determines whether or not it's an addiction
  
  
• The addict wants to stop the behavior, but seems powerless to do so
  
  
• ...Anything that you enjoy doing so much that you do it without regard for the feelings of your spouse will damage, and possibly ruin, your marriage.

These factors in addition to the fact that you can't stop indicates an addiction. From wikipedia:
You, yourself have told us that it would upset your marriage and damage your marriage if she knew you were viewing porn and choking the ole chicken. So you hide out of guilt and shame.

No one has called "any porn viewing an addiction" though. I have said YOU are addicted to porn. You can't give it up. You are willing to risk your marriage rather than give up porn.

10 pages defending salami slapping ??

I guess I don't understand what you want. You have tried for months to convince others that this is ok, to no avail. Why? You don't need our approval, so your continued attempts just come across as aspergerish. If you want to choke the chicken and look at porn, just go do it. You don't need to go on an internet forum and try - and fail - to get the approval of others.

Do you need our approval that bad?

I'm not looking for approval, it is just hard for me to sit and listen to all the hype and misinformation about porn without saying anything about it to at least try to set the record straight so that's the main reason why I keep getting sucked into this discussion. I can't imagine any real addict only engaging in their compulsive behavior less than once per month, spending no significant time or money on it, and experiencing no noticeable negative effects in their health or everyday life as a direct result of their alleged addiction. Show me any legitimate and convincing reasons why I should permanently stop once and for all other than because my wife wants me to and I will. My wife has asked for many things that are not very realistic. Maybe you think all this name-calling is cute and funny but it will definitely not discourage very many men from viewing porn for long if at all and my guess is that this will mostly result in even more widespread denial and dishonesty than there already is in this case.

If the only way to prove you aren't addicted to porn is to never once view it again then that would mean the majority of men are already addicted to it by now and yet life goes on and the divorce rates are not that different than they were before the internet made porn so fast and easy to access without anyone knowing about it. Based on Dr. Harley's description it doesn't sound like I am addicted at all because it clearly isn't doing me any real harm and I never really wanted to stop to begin with but I felt like I didn't have any choice so I that's why I tried to half-heartedly go along with other people's expectations never believing it was truly necessary or worthwhile. I hid it not because of guilt or shame but simply because I thought my wife wouldn't understand very well and that she would definitely overreact dramatically every time she knew about it. I know there are many other men besides me hiding it as well and I don't blame them given some of the judgmental reactions to it I have seen so far.

Yep, you're addicted....

Wow. Misinformation about porn? Enlighten us about this misinformation...

"other than because your wife wants you to"???

I agree with Mel, you are in the insane grip of addiction. Legitimate and convincing reason is: your wife wants you to, because she finds it repulsive.

If you want to be repulsive to your wife and most other real-flesh women after your wife leaves you over your porn habit, keep it up, and enjoy Palmela Handerson and none of the many benefits of a loving spouse.

Hi WANTING to Give Up.
I am impressed that you are still coming back after all the tough things you are hearing. �I am impressed that you are sharing your thoughts with these people even if it's difficult to share them with your wife. �You (and the vets) may peg me as unqualified to post to you but I hope that you will read anyway. I am in tears as I write, and if it doesn't help you then maybe it will help me.. When you first started posting I thought you were my husband. �You are identical with way of relating, porn, masturbation habit, religion. You are so him: Behavior, attitude and thinking habits! �And to top it off, I am your wife. �Not really. She's probably prettier, and is definitely definitely younger. I'm sure we both look ugly during our insane angry outbursts. As your posts continued, I figured out that you are not my husband, darn it. I wish he (or I) had come here several years ago.
Give Up,
You and your house will eventually crumble. You are building a facade based on deceit. You are not building a marriage. Believe me, that with your thinking habits, your addiction will get worse & lead you to a HUGE mistakes little by little. Her greatest pain will be your DISHONESTY & DISLOYALTY.
I would rather have had the truth & disappointment then, even though it would have hurt me. My husband felt many of the things you do, but didn't tell me out of fear. And our unhealthy cycle grew. Grew for 20 years. I tried and tried. Harley is so right. I got sick. I went from Pollyanna to Miss Operation game where my sensors overreacted to his thoughtlessness and lack of care. Lack of care is a thinking pattern, not just keepinga secret or a porn habit or sipping a few. You see, if you don't care how she feels when you think she is wrong, then you don't care for her. My husband went through motions like you do. But he didn't really listen. The insidious habits of meeting his own needs, self-protection, conflict avoidance, and deceit, and my ensuing anger habits have corrupted our facade and it is heartbreaking. I feel so used. I feel like our family was a lie & my husband a complete sham. �My young years were wasted. He took it all from me while he sat in lack of commitment and self satisfy land. He never said it, but he showed it, just like you are. This is not about religious beliefs. This is about love, care, respect and promises. Intimacy, honesty and teamwork. Our takers became ugly. Mine overt and his covert.
PLEASE DO NOT STEAL HER LIFE FROM HER. Please listen to all of these posters. They KNOW what they are talking about. Your wife can handle it. It's you who can't handle it. But you can both learn. Get off the bus or fix the engine. She may be mad at the truth, but she has a right to decide. Give her a chance to improve herself and take care of your needs by telling her what they are and be willing to do a grown-up man's work of meeting hers. Show her the concepts, tell her about the real you. Tell her that you won't live with her AOs and let Harley and these people show her a better way. Villifying, disrespecting and running away from her is cowardly.

Awesome post, Didn'tQuit!

By the way, even though it doesn't really matter... Porn and masturbation are not harmless. You could do a little research and see the studies, but a selfish addict obviously doesn't care to.
Go ahead and see where it gets you...My experience confirms that porn creates the following:
1. Visual contrast effect will eventually Spoil/prevent the possibility of you connecting and getting satisfaction with your wife or any other RL woman
2. Physical masturbation contrast over time will necessitate a hefty Cialis/Viagra bill. No woman enjoys a floppy member, especially when it reminds her of her husband's habit of self sex for anxiety relief. Your member will gradually reflect your weakening power & masculinity, as well as your inability to have a grown up relationship and grown up sex. See Pepperband's thread of sex advice. It's so right on. Sorry I don't know how to post links.
3. Disrespectful children. Porn is just one example, that is hidden from your children. But they already see daily representations of your disrespect and lack of care for your wife's feelings and will surely be instilled with similar thinking. You will not feel worhy of your kids' respect. Self sex in lieu of doing the difficult bonding thing with your wife does not create relationship skills and you won't be able to model a healthy relationship for them.
4. You will not feel worthy of being loved or respected. This realization reinforces your "wanting to give up" and perpetuates the shame based addiction cycle.
my post here is to share my experience with you,confirming the harmful results from your current thinking. My marriage has not recovered YET. We shall see. But we both can see how Harley's plan would have taught us a better way years ago. Now, the addictions are fierce, resentments are huge, habits are ingrained, stakes are higher than ever. Motivation is harder to come by. Decisions to DO can always be made. Don't go on like this. If you WANT TO GIVE UP then you will. Whatever you do, don't waste her life because of your deceit. Tell your wife that she is in my prayers and you are too. Thanks for being here. Now don't push away the life boat just because it's a rough ride.

I found an answer from Dr. Harley concerning porn. It was asked if the Porn was POJA'd what are the other effects of porn.

Here is his answer.

Someone actually said "Your wife is always right and you need to admit you are wrong"???? Please show me that post. I missed it. Or you are using it to distract us - and I must tell you that we DON'T GET DISTRACTED from the central points of the posts here.

I am getting the sense that you are placing a greater priority in your sexual satisfaction of yourself in your own solitude than you are in inviting your wife to participate in SF with you. I get the impression that you use her as an 'addition' to your porn stimulation. I doubt she likes being an addition to your sexual stimulation, instead of being your source of stimulation.

Am I wrong?

Have you considered that the problem is in how you are hearing, rather than what is being said.

For one, no one has said your wife is always right. In fact, if you really believe that folks have said this, then it's rather insulting to the folks who have put in time and talent trying to help you.

If what you are hearing is your wife is always right, we can't help you. Because your problem goes beyond a relationship problem if that's what you hear.

Until you can actually hear and understand what you are being told, I find it difficult to believe that you can be helped.

Now if you take the time to understand the real message, which is describing YOUR contribution to the problems in the marriage and things you can do to address your side of the street, you may make some progress.

Why don't we address her faults and problems? She's not here. So coaching her is a fruitless exercise at this point. The only one we can coach is you.

You can be coach-able or not. But by coaching you, we are not saying she's always right and you are always wrong. We are saying you are here, and if you want us to help you, then these are the things you can do to improve your "game."

But if you are unwilling or unable to discern the difference, then I don't know what else we can offer. Perhaps others have something I don't have in their bag of tricks that will help you better understand the difference between coaching the one who is here and blaming only the one who is here for all the problems.

No one is doing the latter. Many are attempting the former, apparently with little success.

marking

I will help you! .. I even posted in that thread on page 9 when I was asked how porn made me feel when I was addicted. I am NO longer addicted and it feels FANTASTIC! I quit cold turkey one day after praying about it and trying to quit many times previously. But once my wife and I began to rebuild our intimacy PROPERLY and as the effects of MB really sank in ... I no longer needed Porn .. I had my amazing wife again! I think my description is on page 9. I forget though. Read it and see.

Aunt Pep's sex advice thread

MNG

Here .. I will quote myself for you fomr that thread. The entire thing is a good read though.


THen i was asked this ..


My answer was this..


And HHH replied with this right after my reply.


MNG

Hi Grim-

Just thinking about you lately. Hope things are better for you. Did you ever have that radically honest talk with your wife? Would love to hear how you are doing and get an update.

DidntQuit